I came home for one forgotten folder and found my eight-month-pregnant wife crouched beneath our dining table while my mother pushed fish bones toward her mouth. Six members of my family stood around them watching, and not one person was trying to stop it. Then Hannah coughed, and a thin red streak touched the front of her cream maternity dress.

I didn't shout. I didn't warn him.

I lunged from the shadows behind the door, slamming my entire body weight into the attacker's back.

We crashed into the bedside table, sending the water pitcher, the legal pad, and medical trays crashing to the floor with a deafening racket. The glass syringe slipped from the attacker’s hand, shattering against the corner of the metal bed frame, the clear, deadly liquid splashing harmlessly across the linoleum.

The attacker grunted—a deep, male grunt—and spun around with terrifying speed.

A gloved fist struck me squarely across the cheekbone, sending stars exploding across my vision. I stumbled back against the wall, but I kept my grip on the knife. The attacker reached into his waistband, pulling a short, heavy steel crowbar from beneath his scrub top, swinging it violently at my head.

I ducked beneath the swing. The steel bar smashed into the drywall, obliterating the plaster right where my skull had been an inch earlier.

Before he could pull the bar back, I drove my left shoulder into his ribs, tackling him to the floor. We rolled across the broken glass. I brought my right elbow down with everything I had, smashing it directly into the bridge of his nose beneath the surgical mask.

Cartilage crunched sickeningly. The man howled in pain, his hands flying up to his face.

I scrambled on top of him, pinning his chest with my knees, and pressed the cold, razor-sharp edge of my tactical blade directly against his jugular vein.

"Move," I hissed, blood dripping from my split cheek onto his forehead, "and I will open your throat from ear to ear."

Hannah was sitting up in bed, clutching the sheet to her chest, her eyes wide with terror as she watched us in the flickering beam of my dropped phone.

Down the hall, shouting erupted. Heavy boots pounded on the floor as hospital security, having finally realized the basement electrical conduits had been sabotaged, sprinted toward the room with high-powered flashlights.

The doors burst open. Four armed security officers flooded the room, their weapons drawn, flashlight beams pinning us in blinding white crossfire.

"Hands! Hands!" one screamed.

"He's the intruder!" I yelled back, never taking the knife from the man's throat. "Get zip-ties! Now!"

Two guards tackled the man's arms, yanking him into agonizing shoulder locks while the third slapped heavy industrial zip-ties around his wrists and ankles.

I stood up, breathing heavily, wiping the blood from my face with the back of my sleeve. I reached down and ripped the surgical mask from the man's face.

I didn't recognize him. He had a buzz-cut, dead gray eyes, and a broken nose gushing blood. A professional mercenary. A cleaner.

"Who hired you?" I snarled, grabbing him by the hair and yanking his head backward until his neck strained. "Who gave you the oxytocin? Who cut the power to the basement?!"

The man spit a mouthful of bloody saliva onto my shoe. He said nothing.

"He won't talk to you, Mr. Vance," Detective Miller’s voice cut through the chaos.

The detective stepped into the room, his trench coat dripping wet from the storm, his badge gleaming in the flashlight beam. Behind him were two federal agents holding an open evidence bag containing a satellite phone.

"We intercepted the burner phone communications from the Connecticut estate twenty minutes ago," Miller said, looking down at the man on the floor with cold disgust. "His name is Victor Vance. Former private military contractor. Julian Vance's half-brother from his father's first marriage."

My breath caught in my throat. Another Vance. Another snake in the family tree.

"Julian made a plea deal from his jail cell two hours ago," Miller continued, stepping closer. "The feds offered him ten years instead of life if he flipped on Eleanor. Julian gave up everything. He gave up the wire transfers, the hit contracts, and the exact timetable Eleanor gave this man."

"What timetable?" I demanded.

Miller looked at Hannah, then back at me, his face grim as granite.

"Eleanor knew the oxytocin might fail," Miller said quietly. "This was just Plan B to create a distraction. Plan A is already moving."

"What Plan A?!"

"Eleanor walked out of the Connecticut sanitarium forty minutes ago," Miller said, his radio crackling with static as sirens wailed in the background. "She had a corrupt state judge sign an emergency extradition and conservatorship warrant claiming Hannah was kidnapped by you and is being held against her will. She isn’t trying to kill the baby in secret anymore, Logan."

Miller looked toward the window, where the howling storm was rattling the glass.