They had no cars, no keys, and no access to the accounts that paid for their lives.

I watched them stand there, their expensive shoes soaking in the runoff from the gutters.

They looked small.

They looked like the people they had spent decades looking down upon.

My phone buzzed again in my hand.

I looked down at the screen.

In the carriage house feed, the gloved hand had stopped moving.

The blue light on the metal box was no longer blinking.

It had turned a solid, steady red.

The countdown had stopped, but the device was armed.

“Colonel,” a voice crackled through my earpiece.

It was Sergeant Miller, positioned near the back gate.

“We have movement near the rear of the carriage house,” Miller said.

“Someone is trying to bypass the secondary lock,” he reported.

I looked at General Vance.

He nodded once, giving me the unspoken order to proceed.

I turned away from the Monroe family, leaving them to the marshals.

The rain beat against my shoulders as I walked toward the side path.

The gravel crunched under my boots.