Chapter 4 - Reunited in the Dark
"Dad! Is that you?!"
The sound of my son's voice hit me like a physical blow, tearing through twelve months of grief, rage, and agony in a single second.
"It's me, buddy! I'm here! Stand back from the door!" I shouted, my hands shaking uncontrollably as Gabriel stepped up beside me with an industrial breacher tool.
With two massive strikes, the lock mechanism shattered. Gabriel threw the heavy steel door open.
The room inside was tiny, windowless, and freezing cold. A single mattress lay on the floor, covered in thin blankets. Sitting in the center of the room, clutching his knees to his chest, was an eight-year-old boy with messy brown hair and eyes that matched my own.
He was thinner than I remembered, his clothes worn and dirty, but he was alive.
"Lucas..." I whispered, dropping my weapon to the floor and falling to my knees.
For a fraction of a second, the boy stared at me as if I were a ghost. Then, with a choked sob, he hurled himself out of the blankets and threw his arms around my neck.
"Dad! You found me! You found me!" he wept, his small frame shaking violently against my chest.
I pulled him into my arms, burying my face in his neck, holding him so tightly I could feel every beat of his rapid heart. I didn't care about the smoke, the sirens beginning to wail in the distance, or the syndicate empire waiting outside. In that dark, filthy room, the entire universe shrank down to the weight of my son in my arms.
"I promised I'd never stop looking for you, Lucas," I sobbed openly, no longer the feared syndicate boss, but simply a father who had been restored to life. "I'm never letting you go again. Never."
"Emily..." Lucas pulled back slightly, wiping his eyes with a dirty sleeve. "Dad, Emily ran away to find help... did she make it? Is she okay?"
"She's safe, buddy," I smiled through my tears, stroking his hair. "She found me in the rain. She gave me your picture. She saved your life."
Before Lucas could answer, a dark shadow appeared in the doorway behind Gabriel.
CLICK.
"How touching," a harsh, rasping voice echoed through the narrow frame.
I spun around, keeping Lucas firmly behind my body.
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Victor Vance stood in the doorway, his face bloodied from the firefight, holding a tactical detonator in his left hand and a heavy revolver in his right. Gabriel lay unconscious on the floor beside him, struck from behind in the chaotic corridor.
"You should have stayed on your side of the river, Ross," Victor sneered, his finger hovering over the red toggle switch on the detonator. "This whole place is wired with industrial charges. You step out of this room, and I collapse the entire third floor into the river."
