CHAPTER 251: THREE MINUTES [II]

"Adrien, look!" Cameron’s voice was a frantic shout, pointing. Not just at the landmine, but at the entire periphery of the second floor. Thin wires, almost invisible in the gloom, snaked along the walls, connecting small, unassuming blocks everywhere. This wasn’t just a landmine; it was a trigger. The entire second floor was rigged.

The timer stared back at me, mocking, relentless: 00:02:47.

"Everyone out! Move! Now!" I screamed, the words tearing from my lungs.

But where? We were on the second floor of a massive warehouse. The only way down was the metal staircase we’d just ascended, now probably a death trap. The first floor had been a maze. This was a death trap.

00:02:35.

My eyes darted around, frantic, desperate. The vast space, the high ceiling, the shadows. It felt like a tomb closing in. The main entrance, downstairs, was a lifetime away. Cameron and Gray were already for a way, with some of them. But there was no obvious exit on this level. No fire escape, no open windows large enough for a man, especially not two stories up.

My gaze swept past a series of massive, rolled-up canvas tarps that stretched from floor to ceiling along one wall, covering what I’d assumed were just more storage shelves. But as I looked closer, my eyes caught on the heavy-duty industrial latches visible beneath the canvas. Too robust for simple shelving. Too wide.

"No, wait!" I bellowed, pointing with a shaking hand. "Over there. The tarps. Those aren’t shelves. They’re loading doors. Second-story loading bay doors."

Cameron’s head snapped up, his eyes following my line of sight. "You think they’re functional?"

"They have to be!" I didn’t wait for an answer. "Everyone! Pull those tarps! Now!"

00:02:10.

My men, spurred by the urgency in my voice and the chilling timer, sprinted, their boots pounding on the concrete. We tore at the thick canvas, ripping it away with desperate strength. Beneath, revealed in the harsh glow of the timer, another timer with a bomb.

The timer screamed louder in my head than the actual siren.

"Boss!" Gray’s voice cracked through the gunfire. "I’ve found a window! North side—leads straight into the river!"

My head snapped toward him. He was pointing towards a section of the wall where a large, grimy window was visible. The glass was thick, industrial, and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in decades.

Before I could bark an order, the first shot rang out. Then another. Bullets tore into the steel walls, sparks spitting. Men scattered for cover as shadows poured out from the far end of the warehouse—gunmen, masked, rifles up.

"Ambush!" someone yelled.

The timer’s incessant ticking was a drumbeat against the sudden cacophony of gunfire. 00:01:55. The immediate threat was no longer the explosives, but the cold, hard lead spitting from the north end of the warehouse. My priority fight had just shifted.

"Go! Move!" I roared, already returning fire. The recoil rattled through my arms. My men fell back toward the window in bursts—jumping one by one into the water below as rounds shredded the air around us.

Cameron slammed his back against a column next to me, teeth bared, gun steady. "You first, Adrien—"

The crack of a shot split his sentence in half. His body jerked, then crumpled forward.

"Cam!" I lunged, catching him under the arm before he hit the floor. Blood was already soaking through his trouser.

He gritted his teeth, voice a harsh rasp. "Run, brother. Get out."

"I’m not fucking leaving you." My grip tightened until my knuckles whitened.

Gunfire raked across the catwalk, sending sparks raining down. Behind us, the timer screamed down its final minute.

"Boss, now!" Gray shouted from the window, already shoving another man out into the night.

One of our men—Rafi—appeared at my side, eyes wild. "Boss, we’re running out of time!"

"Help me," I snapped.

Together we hauled Cameron up between us, his head lolling but his eyes still sharp with pain. We staggered to the window, ducking under fire. Bullets punched holes in the walls inches from my face.

"Now!" I barked.

Rafi and I swung Cameron once, twice, then hurled him out through the window. He hit the water with a heavy splash, vanishing into the dark.

As Cameron’s body landed with a splash, I felt a momentary sense of relief, only to be washed away by the realization of what I still had to do. I turned to Rafi, my eyes locking onto his, conveying the urgency of the situation.

"Go," I growled, shoving him towards the window.

Without hesitation, he complied, diving through the opening to join Gray and the others in the frigid waters below.

I turned back, firing into the attackers, covering the last men scrambling for the exit. Every second stretched thin. My lungs burned. The timer’s shrill beep counted down, louder and louder.

Five seconds.

The gunmen abruptly stopped shooting, pulling back like a tide. My stomach dropped.

Four.

Three.

Two.

I sprinted for the window, my boots slipping on blood-slick metal.

One—

I jumped.

The world tore open behind me. Fire and steel roared out of the warehouse, the shockwave slamming into my back midair. I hit the water like a stone, the impact stealing my breath as the night above lit orange and red.

Under the surface, all I heard was silence—and then the muffled thunder of the building collapsing into itself.

The icy shock of the river was a brutal awakening. I surfaced, choking on the bitter water, my ears ringing with the muffled roar of the explosion from the warehouse. The current tugged at me, pulling me downstream, away from the inferno that was now consuming the building. My team members, a scattered collection of dark shapes, were already struggling against the powerful flow, disoriented but alive.

I scanned the riverbanks, my heart hammering against my ribs. Where was Cameron? Where were the children? The mission, the objective, the reason we’d braved this deadly trap... it felt swallowed by the chaos and the fire.

"Cameron!" I rasped, my voice hoarse.

A coughing rasp answered downriver. I fought toward it and found Cameron half-submerged, face raw with grit, coughing like he’d swallowed the sky. He blinked up at me, crooked smile and all the colour leeched from his cheeks.

"You piece of shit," he rasped, his voice barely audible. "You actually jumped."

"We all did," I snapped, keeping him afloat. My gaze flicked to the bank, to the scattered silhouettes of my men dragging themselves out of the river. "Are you... are you hit badly?"

He managed a grimace. "Just my pride, I think. And maybe a few ribs." He winced. "The kids... Adrien, the kids aren’t with us."

My blood ran cold again. The children. We had been so focused on survival, on escaping the inferno, that we’d forgotten the primary objective. The masked gunmen, the bombs, the sheer terror of the situation had blinded us. I’d risked everything. Lost men. Nearly died. And still... I’d failed them.

"Where were they?" I demanded, my voice laced with growing panic. "Did you see them when you were grabbed?"

Cameron’s brow furrowed in concentration, then his eyes widened slightly. "The basement. When the first shots rang out, I saw some of the perimeter guards, the ones who weren’t part of the main ambush, being herded towards a reinforced door on the ground floor. They were yelling about a ’secondary location’."

A secondary location. Of course. They wouldn’t have kept them on the second floor, knowing the risk if their trap was sprung. They would have moved them.