Lucas.
A hand holding a Glock 19 entered the frame. The slide racked back with a sickening clatter. The muzzle pressed against Lucas’s temple.
A distorted, mechanical voice pulsed through the speaker. “You have one hour, Captain. Bring your father.”
Chapter 2: The Devil’s Deal
The world shrank to the dimensions of my phone screen. The blinding California sun, the staring crowd, my family’s shocked faces—it all vanished. There was only the metallic click of the gun against Lucas’s skull and the shallow, ragged rise and fall of his chest.
He was breathing. My dead husband was breathing.
I disconnected the call. My hands, which had remained perfectly steady while suturing arteries in the back of a Blackhawk, were trembling violently.
Commander Hayes noticed my abrupt halt. He stepped toward me, his brow furrowing. “Captain? Are you alright?”
I looked up. My father, Richard, was staring at me from the VIP section. The confusion on his face was melting into something else. Something dark. Something like dread. He saw the blood-stained dog tags dangling from my clenched fist.
I didn’t answer Hayes. I walked straight toward my father.
“Emily,” my mother started, her voice a fragile flutter. “What on earth is going on? What did he call you? Captain?”
I ignored her. I grabbed my father by the lapels of his expensive linen suit and hauled him out of his chair. The security details surged forward, but Hayes threw up a hand, stopping them dead.
“Emily, stop!” Ryan yelled, grabbing my arm.
I shoved Ryan backward with enough force to send him stumbling into the row of chairs. “Stay out of this, Ryan,” I snarled.
I dragged my father out of the seating area, pushing him into the shadowed alcove beneath the concrete bleachers. The air smelled of salt and hot asphalt.
I shoved the dog tags against his chest. “Where did they come from, Dad?”
His eyes darted left and right, terrified of the shadows. “I… I don’t know what those are.”
“Don’t lie to me!” My voice cracked, a feral sound I barely recognized. I shoved my phone into his face, playing the frozen frame of the video. Lucas, bleeding, a gun to his head. “He’s alive. Six years, Dad. Six years I mourned an empty casket. And they just called me. They asked for you.”
