CHAPTER 7 — STORAGE UNIT 614
Adrian left the boardroom without explaining.
Celeste called after him.
“Running away again?”
He stopped at the door.
“If Milo gets hurt, I will spend every dollar I own making sure you never see sunlight again.”
For the first time, her smile cracked.
Adrian took the service elevator down.
The caller spoke again.
“Come alone to Harbor Storage.”
“Let me hear the boy.”
A struggle sounded in the background.
Then Milo shouted, “Don’t come! It’s a—”
The line cut off.
Adrian drove himself in an unmarked company car.
At Harbor Storage, the front office was empty. Unit 614 sat at the end of a narrow row near the water.
The metal door was partly open.
Adrian stepped inside.
“Mil—”
A fist struck the side of his face.
He dropped to one knee.
Grant Keller stood over him, bruised but smiling.
“You’re hard to kill.”
“Where’s the boy?”
Grant dragged Adrian deeper into the unit.
Milo was tied to a chair.
Luis lay on the floor nearby, conscious but bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
Behind them stood a second chair.
A thin man with a gray beard sat chained to it.
Jonah Hayes.
Milo’s eyes filled with tears.
“Dad.”
Jonah tried to stand.
“Don’t touch my son!”
Grant pressed a gun against Adrian’s back.
“Your death was supposed to be clean. A brake failure. A tragic highway accident.”
Adrian looked at Jonah.
“Why keep him alive?”
Grant laughed.
“Marcus needed someone who could access every vehicle system your company builds.”
Jonah’s voice was weak.
“They wanted the military transport codes.”
Vale Dynamics had recently developed armored vehicles for government agencies.
Adrian understood.
“The merger was never the goal.”
Jonah shook his head.
“It was cover. Marcus planned to sell the control systems overseas.”
Grant shoved Adrian toward the chair.
“Now you’re going to unlock the master server.”
“I don’t have access from here.”
“You have biometric access.”
Grant placed a laptop on a table.
Adrian’s face was scanned.
A secure company login appeared.
“Open it,” Grant ordered.
Adrian slowly typed.
The laptop requested a voice phrase.
Grant leaned closer.
Adrian said, “Vale authorization. Protocol Black.”
The screen flashed green.
Grant smiled.
Then every storage door in the building slammed shut.
Red emergency lights appeared overhead.
A mechanical voice announced:
FACILITY LOCKDOWN ACTIVATED. AUTHORITIES NOTIFIED.
Grant’s smile vanished.
Adrian turned.
“Protocol Black isn’t an access phrase.”
He drove his shoulder into Grant.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Luis swept Grant’s legs from beneath him while Milo tipped his chair sideways and rolled behind a steel cabinet.
Jonah kicked the laptop off the table.
Grant lunged for the gun.
Before he could reach it, a shot came from the doorway.
Grant stopped moving.
Celeste stood there holding a pistol.
For one stunned moment, Adrian thought she had saved them.
Then she aimed the gun at Milo.
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“Give me the notebook,” she said.
“Or the child leaves here without his father.”
