Chapter 5

Vanessa's phone rang. She checked it and her face drained of color. She hit decline.

It rang again.

Dad’s cold, shadowed eyes shifted to Vanessa.

He took the phone from her hand and answered it.

The moment it connected, a man's hoarse, panicked voice came through.

"Mrs. Carter, your sister just got brought in here. She's barely hanging on. Do you want us to dump the body in the river?"

The back alley. The worst part of the city. The place where the lowest of the low ended up, addicts, prostitutes, disease.

Dad ended the call.

Vanessa went white as bone.

Dad grabbed her by the hair and ran.

The car stopped at the mouth of the alley. The smell hit them first, raw and rotting, urine and blood and something deeper, older, impossible to name.

Dad kicked open the door to number 318.

He saw something he would never be able to forget for the rest of his life.

Miranda lay on a filthy, broken-down bed. Syringes scattered on the floor beside her. Her body was covered in bruises, a wad of ripped cloth shoved in her mouth. Her arms and legs were twisted at wrong angles, limp across the stained sheets, dark blood and worse beneath her. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, wide open, pupils so dilated they were terrifying.

Two scrawny men were in the room, buckling their belts, heading for the door.

One of them laughed, savoring something.

"That one had some fight in her. Wonder where Ryan found her."

The other one grinned.

"Feisty ones are the best. That was thrilling."

Dad's vision went red. He swung his fist into the man's face, full force.

"How dare you touch her?"

The man went down hard, blood pouring from his nose, out cold.

The second one grabbed a steel pipe from the wall and brought it down toward Dad's head. Dad turned in time and took it on the shoulder. He grunted, then snarled, grabbed the pipe, and swung it back without stopping.

He didn't stop until the man was coughing blood, on his knees begging, spitting out the whole story.

Then Dad lowered the pipe.

Vanessa had already bolted. She ran screaming, barefoot, one heel gone, wedding dress filthy, into the alley. She didn't get far. Dad's men caught her and dragged her back.

Dad kicked her hard in the knee.

"On your knees."

Vanessa was too terrified to make a sound. She knelt on the filthy floor in front of the woman she'd never thought twice about destroying, pressing her forehead down over and over, screaming that she was sorry.

Dad turned and walked to the bed on shaking legs.

"Miranda..."

He said her name, and his voice was unrecognizable, raw with a fear he'd never felt before.

"Wake up. Don't sleep. I'm here. Let's go home, okay?"

Her eyes didn't move. Her breathing was barely there.

Dad held her and wept out loud.

"Miranda. Look at me. I'm Ethan. I'm here to take you home."

She didn't respond, like a worn, tattered rag doll.

Then the system voice cut through, cold as an electric current:

[System alert: body damage exceeds recoverable threshold. AI integration failed.]

[Executing death protocol.]

[Host will be departing this world.]