He lingered there, his hand resting on the boy’s back, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm.

“We have to trust him,” Adrian said, looking back at us. “We don’t have another choice.”

I walked over and stood beside him, looking down at our sleeping children.

“If this goes wrong,” I said, my voice barely a breath, “I will never forgive you.”

“I know,” Adrian said, his gray eyes locking onto mine. “I won’t let anything happen to them.”

Suddenly, the overhead light flickered once, then went completely dark.

The silence in the warehouse became heavy, thick with the smell of old iron and damp concrete.

Across the room, Isabella’s computer screen didn’t just dim—it turned a solid, glowing white.

A sharp, high-pitched chime echoed from her desk, followed by the sound of a vehicle door closing in the alley outside.

I reached out in the dark, my fingers catching the rough fabric of Adrian’s sleeve.

He didn’t move, but I felt the muscle in his arm tighten like wire.

“Isabella?” Adrian whispered.

“The mainframe,” Isabella said, her voice unusually tight. “It’s been locked from the outside.”