THE GHOST IN HER EYES: THE SECRET SHE CARRIED

The front door gave way with a deafening crash, wood shards flying across the dusty floor. Two silhouettes stepped over the threshold, their flashlights cutting bright, smoky cones through the damp air.

“Clara, sweetie,” a gravelly voice sneered into the gloom. “Kane is tired of paying rent on this empty world for you. Hand over the toy and maybe the kid gets a foster home instead of a river swim.”

Julian waited, tucked into the pitch-black alcove behind the door frame. His breathing was dead-silent, his knuckles white around the cold iron crowbar.

The first enforcer moved past him, flashlight sweeping over the empty cot and the abandoned blanket. “Boss, they’re here. Cot’s still warm.”

As the second enforcer stepped forward to join him, Julian struck.

With blinding speed, Julian swung the crowbar into the second man’s knee. The enforcer let out a muffled scream as his leg buckled, his gun clattering across the floorboards. Before the first man could pivot, Julian lunged, driving his shoulder into the man’s midsection, slamming him backward into a shelf of ceramic planters.

Dozens of heavy pots shattered in a thunderous avalanche of clay and soil. The flashlight rolled across the floor, illuminating the violent struggle. The enforcer was younger and heavier, throwing a brutal punch that caught Julian across the jaw, tasting copper immediately. But Julian fought with the savage desperation of a father with nothing left to lose.

Gripping a jagged shard of terracotta, Julian drove it into the man’s shoulder, flipping him over and pinning him against the wooden beam before knocking him cold with a heavy brass scale from the counter.

Panting, blood trickling from his split lip, Julian scooped up the fallen 9mm pistol and the dropped flashlight.

“Julian!” Clara’s strained voice called from the back.

He turned. Clara had managed to pry the rotting cellar door open with Lily’s help.