Chapter 3 - Faking the Heartline
The drive to David and Emily’s estate in the gated community of Blackwood Hills took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of absolute silence inside my truck, broken only by the steady sweep of the windshield wipers against a light, freezing rain.
My mind raced back over the last four years. David Mitchell had appeared in Emily’s life like a fairytale. He was smart, wealthy, articulate, and fiercely protective of her. When he asked for my blessing to marry her, I looked into his eyes and saw what I thought was unwavering integrity.
Now, all I saw was a ghost.
HE LIED TO YOU TOO.
What did those words mean? Who was the 'He'? Was it referring to me? Was someone telling Emily that her father—a decorated Army officer—had lied to her? Or was it referring to David?
I pulled my black Ford F-150 onto the shoulder of the road, two hundred yards past the stone entrance of Blackwood Hills, turning off the headlights.
Within ninety seconds, a silent dark SUV pulled up behind my truck. The doors opened softly, and three men stepped out into the rain, moving with the fluid, low-profile grace of seasoned combat veterans.
Marcus Vance led the way. Beside him were Staff Sergeant Frank Miller—a master breecher and communications specialist—and Sarah Jenkins, a former military intelligence analyst who could crack a fortress database in under five minutes.
"Colonel," Marcus said, giving a sharp nod as he reached my window. He was wearing dark tactical gear under an unbuttoned heavy coat. "What’s the situation?"
I held up the bloody piece of cloth with the embroidered D.C.M.
"Emily was brought to St. Mary's an hour ago," I said, my voice cutting through the sound of the falling rain. "Someone carved a message into her back and left her for dead in a drainage canal. She was holding this."
Marcus’s eyes hardened into steel. Sarah let out a low, dangerous breath.
"Is she...?" Frank started.
"She’s alive, but hidden," I said. "We’re treating this as an active hostile operation. Local police are not involved. I don't know who we can trust yet. David’s house is straight down this drive, third property on the left. We execute a soft breach, secure the perimeter, and grab David for interrogation."
"Understood," Marcus said, pulling a suppressed sidearm from his shoulder holster and checking the chamber. "Quiet entry. No noise unless fired upon."
We moved through the thick pine trees lining the perimeter of the estate, bypassing the main security gate easily. The Mitchell house was a sprawling two-story modern structure made of glass, steel, and dark timber.
The house was completely dark. No lights in the windows. No vehicles in the circular driveway.
"Something's wrong," Sarah whispered, crouching behind a stone pillar near the garage. "A house like this has an integrated smart-security system. The perimeter sensors are completely dead. The fiber-optic line at the junction box was severed cleanly."
"Professional," Frank muttered, checking the glass sliding door at the patio. "It’s unlocked, Colonel. Not broken. Unlocked."
I drew my own Sig Sauer 9mm from my waist belt, taking the lead. "Stack up. Clear the ground floor first."
We stepped inside the house. The air inside smelled faintly of expensive leather, cold coffee, and something else—something metallic that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Blood.
We moved down the hardwood hallway toward David’s private study. The door was standing half-open.
I pushed the door back with the muzzle of my weapon.
The room was in total ruin. Oak bookshelves had been overturned, papers were scattered across the floor like autumn leaves, and a heavy brass desk lamp was smashed against the wall.
In the center of the room, slumped in a heavy leather armchair, was a man.
His head was tilted back, his hands bound behind him with heavy industrial zip-ties. His face was covered in severe contusions, his nose broken, and his white dress shirt—torn dramatically across the left chest where the pocket should have been—was drenched in dark crimson.
David Mitchell.
"Clear!" Marcus called out, sweeping the corners of the room before lowering his weapon.
I stepped closer to my son-in-law. His breathing was shallow and ragged. He was barely conscious.
"David," I growled, grabbing him by the collar of his ruined shirt and shaking him awake. "David! Look at me!"
David’s eyes fluttered open, swollen and bloodshot. He blinked through the gloom, staring at my face as if looking at a spectre.
"Dick...?" David rasped, coughing up a spatter of dark blood. "Is that... is that you?"
"Where is my daughter, David?" I demanded, my grip tightening around his neck. "What happened in this room?!"
David let out a broken, agonizing laugh that turned into a sob.
"They... they took her, Dick," he choked out, tears clearing tracks through the dried blood on his cheeks. "They came for the files... the Vanguard files... I tried to hide her... I gave her my shirt to stop the bleeding before they threw her in the car..."
I froze. "What are you talking about? Who took her?!"
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David looked up at me, his eyes wide with an absolute, desperate terror that no man could fake.
"Not me, Dick..." he whispered, his body trembling violently against the zip-ties. "Your old unit... Vanguard. They said... they said you were dead... they said you ordered the hit thirty years ago..."
