My Mother Hurt My Wife—Then Our Baby Disappeared

A deafening gunshot shattered the rafters.

The bullet ripped through the tin roof three inches from Julian’s head, showering them with sparks and rusted iron flakes.

Julian spun, using Ethan's body as a partial shield while pulling Lily tightly against his chest. "Vance!" he roared into the shadows above. "I know your trigger pull, you bureaucratic bitch! Shoot again and I drop the baby into the slip!"

High up on the rusted maintenance catwalk near the roof vents, Sarah Vance knelt behind an iron girder, her Glock trained steadily on Julian's head.

"Let the child go, Julian!" Sarah called down, her voice cutting through the roar of the rain. "The perimeter is sealed! Miller’s squad is two minutes behind me! You don't walk out of this basin!"

"Miller doesn't have the stomach for this!" Julian yelled back. He stepped closer to the edge of the deep water slip, his heel hanging out over the black drop. "None of you do! Mother spent forty years playing chess with sheep!"

Ethan saw the distraction.

It was half a second. A single sliver of time where Julian’s eyes flicked upward toward the catwalk.

Ignoring the agonizing fire tearing through his dislocated shoulder, Ethan drove his heels into the wet floorboards and threw his entire body weight forward like a missile, tackling Julian around the knees.

Both men went down hard against the timber.

Lily rolled out of Julian’s grasp, sliding across the slick boards toward Claire’s feet. Claire threw herself forward off the crate, landing on her stomach across her daughter, covering Lily's body with her own bound torso, screaming through the tape.

Julian roared in fury. He dropped the steel pipe and drove his thumb into the soft tissue beneath Ethan's jaw, gouging toward the carotid artery.

Ethan choked, his vision tunneling into black dots. He grabbed Julian’s wrists, feeling the horrifying symmetry of their bone structure—their fingers were identical, their grips matched pound for pound. It was like fighting his own reflection in a nightmare.

"You were supposed... to stay... in the dark!" Julian hissed into his ear, his breath hot and smelling of sour copper.

Ethan raised his right knee, driving it violently into Julian’s groin.

Julian groaned, his grip slipping.

Ethan scrambled backward, his left hand sweeping across the wet floorboards until his fingers closed around the cold, jagged edge of a rusted boat hook lying beside the mooring line.

Ethan swung with everything he had left.

The heavy iron hook caught Julian across the temple.

Julian fell back against the wooden railing of the boat slip. The rotten timber groaned under his weight, splintering with a sound like a rifle shot.

For a fraction of a second, the two brothers locked eyes.

Julian wasn't screaming. He wasn't begging.

A terrible, peaceful smile spread across his bloodied lips.

"She always... kept one... in reserve, Ethan," Julian whispered.

The railing snapped.

Julian plummeted backward into the pitch-black water of Pike Lake.