Chapter 3 - The Surgical Strike
Nathan didn't hesitate.
Years of performing high-stress thoracic surgeries had given him reflexes that operated faster than thought. He lunged forward, grabbing a heavy, marble-topped cutting board from the kitchen island, and slammed it edge-first into Marcus’s face with all the force of his six-foot-two frame.
CRACK!
Marcus’s nose shattered on impact. He dropped the pistol, staggering backward with a bloody scream as his hands flew to his broken face.
"Shoot him!" Marcus shrieked.
The henchman on the left drew his sidearm, but Nathan had already moved. He grabbed the heavy iron kettle boiling on the emergency gas stovetop and threw the scalding water straight into the second man’s eyes.
The man howled in agony, dropping to his knees as the boiling liquid seared his flesh.
The third man charged, swinging a heavy tactical flashlight toward Nathan’s head. Nathan ducked beneath the wild arc, stepped inside the man’s guard, and plunged his steel scalpel straight into the nerve cluster between the man’s shoulder and neck—a precise, non-lethal anatomical strike designed to instantly paralyze the motor functions of the arm.
The flashlight clattered to the floor. The third man gasped, his right arm dropping completely limp at his side as he fell back against the kitchen cabinets.
Marcus, blood streaming down his chin, scrambled across the hardwood floor, his fingers reaching for the dropped gun.
Nathan stepped on Marcus’s wrist with his heavy winter boot.
SNAP.
Marcus let out a guttural shriek as his radius bone cracked under the heel of Nathan’s weight.
Nathan bent down, picked up the black pistol, pulled the magazine, cleared the chambered round, and tossed the useless iron frame into the roaring fireplace behind him.
He picked up the iron crowbar Marcus had used to break in, standing over the bleeding, broken man who had terrorized his sister for seven long years.
"You're going to live, Marcus," Nathan whispered, his face inches from the killer’s bloody cheek. "Because I need you conscious when the FBI reads you the conspiracy charges against Arthur Vance. But if you so much as breathe in the direction of my niece again, I won't use a hospital room to fix what I break."
Nathan turned to the second henchman, who was still clutching his burned face on the floor.
"In the pantry," Nathan commanded cold-bloodedly. "All three of you. Move, or I start practicing anatomy lessons."
Ten minutes later, all three men were locked inside the steel-reinforced storm pantry in the sub-basement—a room built to withstand earthquakes, with four-inch solid steel doors and no interior handles.
Nathan walked back up the stairs, his hands covered in blood and snow melt.
He didn't clean himself up immediately. He walked straight down the hallway to the master suite, giving the security door three distinct, rhythmic knocks.
"Rosa," he called out, his voice hoarse. "It's over. It's safe."
The heavy door unlatched with a soft click. Rosa stood in the doorway, tears streaming down her face, holding the two infants close to her chest.
Behind her, standing on her shaky, bandaged feet, was Lily.
She had wrapped herself in one of Nathan’s giant cash-mere sweaters, the sleeves dragging along the floor like a gown. She looked up at her uncle—at the blood on his shirt, at the iron crowbar in his hand, and at the silver bracelet shining on his wrist under the red emergency lights.
She didn't run. She didn't cry.
She took three slow, halting steps forward, wrapped her tiny arms around Nathan’s leg, and pressed her small face into his knee.
"Thank you, Uncle Nathan," she whispered. "Mommy said you were strong."
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Nathan dropped the crowbar. He dropped to his knees right there in the hallway, pulling the little girl into a tight, fierce embrace, burying his face in her soft, pale hair as the tears he had held back for seven years finally broke through.
"I'm sorry, Lily," he sobbed quietly into her hair. "I'm so sorry I took so long."
