CHAPTER 1 The Boy in the Water
Leo didn’t hesitate.
The twelve-year-old boy launched himself from the upper landing before Arthur could even shout his name.
He hit the floodwater hard.
The impact swallowed him.
For one terrible second, Arthur saw nothing except shattered furniture, spinning debris, and the silver flash of frightened fish twisting through the mansion.
Then Leo surfaced.
He gasped once, turned toward Mia, and began swimming.
“Leo!” Arthur roared from the staircase. “Get back!”
The boy ignored him.
Mia was only eight.
She was small for her age, with dark hair plastered against her face and both hands scraping uselessly across the marble. A broken section of mahogany railing had caught the back of her pink dress, but the fabric was tearing one thread at a time.
Beyond her, the black opening in the aquarium wall churned like a living mouth.
Water rushed through it, pulled outward by the emergency drainage channels beneath the mansion. Anything caught in the current would be carried into the underground filtration system.
Arthur knew the blueprints.
He knew exactly what waited down there.
Steel turbines.
Narrow pipes.
Locked flood gates.
No child could survive it.
“Mia!” Leo shouted.
She turned her head.
Her mouth opened, but the roar of the water swallowed her voice.
Leo grabbed the edge of an overturned table and pulled himself forward. A shark passed behind him, its dark fin cutting through the flooded ballroom.
Several members of the staff screamed from the staircase.
Arthur did not.
He stood frozen, one hand wrapped around the glass railing, staring at the shark.
It was a blacktip reef shark.
Seven feet long.
Not usually aggressive.
Usually.
But the animal was injured. A long cut ran beneath one fin, leaving a thin red trail in the water.
And it was swimming directly toward Leo.
“Behind you!” Arthur shouted.
Leo looked back.
The shark changed direction.
Its body turned with frightening speed.
Arthur ripped off his suit jacket.
“Mr. Sterling, no!” his head of security yelled.
Arthur vaulted over the railing.
He struck the water less gracefully than Leo had, his shoulder slamming into a floating cabinet. Pain tore down his arm, but he forced himself upward.
The water was freezing.
Salt burned his eyes.
He could hear nothing clearly. Every sound became a low, violent thunder.
He saw Leo reach Mia.
The boy wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled at the railing snagging her dress.
It wouldn’t release.
The shark approached.
Arthur reached for the broken leg of a chair floating beside him and gripped it like a spear.
The shark came within six feet of Leo.
Arthur struck the water hard.
The animal veered.
Its tail hit Arthur in the chest with enough force to drive the air from his lungs. He spun beneath the surface, lost the chair leg, and struck the marble floor.
Above him, light fractured through the moving water.
For a moment, Arthur couldn’t tell which way was up.
Then someone grabbed the back of his shirt.
Leo.
The boy pulled him upward.
Arthur broke the surface choking.
“You’re supposed to be saving her!” he gasped.
“I am!”
Leo shoved a piece of broken glass into Arthur’s hand.
“Cut the dress!”
Arthur reached Mia. Her eyes were wide and unfocused.
“Daddy,” she whispered.
It was the first time she had called him that in nearly two years.
The word cut deeper than the glass in his palm.
“I’ve got you,” Arthur said. “Look at me. I’ve got you.”
He sliced through the trapped fabric.
The current seized Mia instantly.
Leo caught one arm.
Arthur caught the other.
For several seconds, the three of them hung in the water while the pull toward the filtration tunnel grew stronger.
Then a second explosion shook the room.
A steel support beam collapsed from the ceiling.
It slammed into the water between them and the staircase.
A wall of foam rose.
Arthur lost his grip.
Mia vanished beneath the surface.
“No!” Leo screamed.
He dove again.
Arthur followed.
The water had become dark with dust, salt, and shattered insulation. His hands found nothing.
Then he saw a flash of pink.
Mia was being dragged toward the black opening.
Leo reached her ankle.
Arthur caught Leo’s wrist.
The current pulled all three of them forward.
Arthur’s shoulder felt as if it were being torn from its socket.
Behind them, security officers threw a rescue line from the stairs.
It fell short.
“Again!” Arthur yelled.
The line landed beside him.
Arthur grabbed it with his free hand.
Three guards pulled.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then they began moving backward.
Inch by inch.
Mia’s body came away from the broken aquarium wall.
Leo kept his grip on her ankle.
Arthur held both children.
The staff dragged them toward the staircase until the marble floor rose beneath their knees.
Hands reached down.
Mia was lifted first.
Then Leo.
Arthur tried to climb, but his right arm refused to move.
His security chief, Marcus Vale, grabbed him beneath the shoulders and hauled him onto the stairs.
“Seal the lower floor!” Arthur shouted.
Marcus stared at him.
“Sir, the flood doors aren’t responding.”
“Then close them manually.”
“We tried.”
Arthur’s eyes moved toward the control station built into the far wall.
Its protective casing had been torn away.
Several wires hung loose.
But the damage didn’t look random.
The wires had been cut cleanly.
Before Arthur could speak, Mia began coughing.
Water spilled from her mouth.
Leo dropped beside her.
“Mia. Come on.”
Her eyes remained closed.
A house medic pushed Leo away and started chest compressions.
Arthur crawled toward them.
“Move,” the medic ordered.
Arthur stopped.
He had spent his entire life making people move.
Employees.
Lawyers.
Government officials.
Competitors.
Yet now he remained on his knees while another man pressed both hands against his daughter’s chest.
“One, two, three, four…”
Leo stood beside Arthur, bleeding from the forehead.
He looked impossibly young.
The medic tilted Mia’s head and gave her another breath.
Nothing.
Arthur’s face emptied.
He reached for Mia’s hand.
It was cold.
Then she coughed again.
Her body twisted.
Air rushed into her lungs.
The staff exhaled as one.
Arthur closed his eyes.
For the first time in decades, he whispered something that sounded like a prayer.
Mia blinked up at him.
“Leo?”
“I’m here,” Leo said quickly.
She turned toward his voice.
Her small fingers closed around his wrist.
Only then did Arthur notice the blood spreading through Leo’s white shirt.
“Where are you hurt?” Arthur asked.
Leo looked down.
A long shard of glass was buried beneath his ribs.
The boy swayed.
Arthur caught him before he fell.
“Leo?”
The boy’s skin had turned gray.
Arthur pressed one hand around the wound.
“Stay awake.”
Leo’s eyelids fluttered.
“Don’t let them take her,” he whispered.
“Who?”
Leo tried to answer.
Before he could, every light in Sterling Manor went out.
Darkness swallowed the staircase.
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A second later, a woman screamed from the upper floor.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.
