The alarm wailed louder, pulsing through the walls like a live heartbeat. Ava clapped her hands over her ears, but the sound still drilled into her skull.
"What is it?" Adrian shouted, his gaze darting around the study frantically.
Mrs. Caldwell's face was white, the syringe still trembling in her hand. "It's the perimeter alarm. They've breached the building."
Ava's chest tightened. "Who?"
Caldwell's eyes flicked to her, sharp and pleading. "People you never want to meet."
Adrian stepped forward, rage in his eyes. "You've kept us captive here for seventeen years, and now you're telling us there's something worse out there? Try again."
Caldwell's demeanor cracked. "Do you think your parents wanted this? Do you think I wanted this? You were hidden for a reason."
The shriek of the alarm died, plunging the penthouse into a suffocating silence.
Then footsteps. Heavy. Multiple. Walking with deliberation down the hallway outside.
Ava's heart jerked. Someone else was in the penthouse.
Adrian grasped her arm. "We need to get out of here."
But Caldwell stood in their way, her eyes burning with an intensity Ava had not seen before. "You don't know. Out there is death. In here." She glanced at the journal in Ava's hand. ".you still have a chance."
The doorknob rattled. A low, male voice rasped an order in a language Ava didn't recognize.
Caldwell's mask slipped completely then. Panic flooded her features. "Listen to me," she hissed. "If they find you, everything your parents died for is lost."
Ava froze. "Died?"
But before Caldwell could answer, the door handle twisted violently, the wood splintering under pressure.
Adrian grabbed a lamp from the desk, his knuckles white. "Whoever's coming through that door" his eyes burned into Caldwell's, "you'd better decide whose side you're on."
The lock shattered. The door exploded inward.
And three masked figures exploded into the room.
The masked figures fanned out with military precision two taking up positions covering the doorway, one moving forward. Their black fatigues bore no insignia, no markings, nothing to suggest who they were.
Adrian raised the lamp like a weapon, his hand steady despite the tremble in his arm. Ava clutched the journal to her, her heart racing against her chest.
The lead intruder nodded toward her, the glass visor reflecting her pale face back at her. His voice was tinny, distorted, as he spoke.
"Ava. Adrian."
Ava's blood ran cold.
"They know our names," she whispered.
Mrs. Caldwell stiffened. "You have no authority here," she barked, her shrill voice trembling. "Leave at once or"
The intruder cut her off with a sharp gesture. "Out of the way, woman. The twins are coming with us."
Adrian's jaw clenched. "No way."
The intruder moved closer, gloved hand reaching out to Ava. She retreated, colliding with the desk. The journal slipped from her grasp, thudding onto the floor, pages opening wide.
One of the masked men glanced down. His head snapped toward the lead intruder. "The book"
"Get it," the leader ordered.
But Mrs. Caldwell moved first. Faster than Ava had ever seen, she retrieved the journal from the floor and shoved it behind her apron. "Over my dead body."
The room pulsed, thick with the threat of violence.
In an instant, Adrian swung the lamp. It smashed into the intruder's arm, scattering sparks. The man staggered but did not fall.
"Run!" Adrian yelled.
Ava dashed to the broken camera wall, Adrian with her. Caldwell followed, a unexpectedly fast old lady, shouting, "The service stairwell go!"
Their attackers leapt after them. Ava's heart racing, they burst from the study into the blackened hallway. The penthouse, once their golden cage, was now a labyrinth that would consume them.
Boots boomed behind them.
And in the chaos, Ava's mind staggered with a single terrifying thought
If these men were familiar with their names, how long had they been familiar?
The hallway felt like it went on forever, each step booming off the marble floors. Ava's lungs ached, her legs racing, the thudding footsteps of the invaders never more than a few feet behind.
"Left!" Mrs. Caldwell ordered, her voice more crisp than Ava had ever heard.
They swerved around the corner, narrowly missing the wall, and ran past glass cases and frowning portraits. The penthouse, once so tidy, now felt ominous its gleaming walls echoing with danger.
"There!" Adrian spotted the narrow service stairwell Caldwell had shouted about. He shoved the door open, and the smell of metal and dust met them as they scrambled inside.
The heavy door groaned shut behind them, muffling the voices of the intruders. For a moment, there was only their ragged breathing in the blackness.
Ava rested against the wall, her chest heaving up and down. "What do they want with us?"
Caldwell's silhouette loomed upright in the dim glow of the emergency light. She was clutching the journal to her breast, her hands trembling despite the steel in her posture.
"They don't want you alone," she whispered, her voice hardly audible. "They want what your parents created."
Adrian's eyes narrowed. "Created? What do you mean?"
Caldwell's gaze darted between them, then toward the door to the stairway, where muffled thuds echoed boots trying to break through. "Your parents weren't the people you thought they were. They weren't socialites. They weren't businesspeople. They were scientists. And you…"
Her voice faded away. For the first time, Caldwell didn't look at them with severity, but with an expression close to dread.
"You are their legacy. And their weapon."
The stairwell door trembled, dust falling from the frame.
Adrian paused. "Weapon? What do you mean weapon?"
But Caldwell didn't answer. She grabbed their hands, yanking them upward. "If you wish to live, keep moving!"
The pounding on the door grew louder, closer to breaking through.
And Ava knew, with a shudder that lodged in her bones, that whatever Caldwell was hiding it was something worth killing for.