Lethal Care (The Nanny Strategy).

Chapter 17: The Vault

POV: Ezra

The London Docklands were a graveyard of rusted shipping containers, rotting piers, and forgotten concrete. It was the perfect place for a disposal.

The GPS coordinates from the tracker I’d sewn into Julian’s suit jacket led me straight to Warehouse 4B.

I parked the wrecked town car inside an empty, open shipping container about two hundred yards from the warehouse entrance. I killed the engine. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of rain drumming on the metal roof.

I turned to the back seat.

"Okay, Leo," I said.

Leo looked small in the leather seat. He had his noise-canceling headphones around his neck, the iPad forgotten on his lap. He was pale, but his jaw was set. He looked like his father.

"Do you see this button?" I pointed to a red toggle switch I had installed under the armrest months ago—part of the 'Paranoia Package' Julian didn't know he had paid for.

Leo nodded.

"I’ve engaged the child locks. Nothing opens from the inside. And I’ve activated the external defensive perimeter. If anyone touches this car from the outside who isn't me, the door handles will discharge fifty thousand volts."

Leo’s eyes went wide.

"You are the Vault Keeper," I told him, handing him my digital stopwatch. "I need you to count. If the numbers get to 30:00 and I’m not back... you push the SOS button on the dash. It calls the police, the fire department, and Spider."

"Spider?" Leo signed.

"A friend," I said. "He lives in the computer."

Leo took the stopwatch. He started it. The numbers began to tick up. 00:01... 00:02...

He looked at me. He raised his hands.

Be careful, he signed.

I smiled. It wasn't my nice smile. It wasn't the smile that charmed grocery store clerks. It was the smile I used before I made people disappear in Vienna.

"I don't need to be careful, Leo," I whispered, checking the suppressor on my pistol. "I’m the one they should be afraid of."

I climbed out of the car. I closed the door. I waited for the heavy thunk of the locks engaging.

I turned toward the warehouse.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of ozone and dirty river water. I let it fill my lungs. I exhaled the Nanny. I locked away the baker, the story-reader, the man who folded laundry.

I became the Ghost.

I moved into the shadows.

POV: Julian

My face hurt. My ribs hurt. My pride hurt the most.

I was zip-tied to a metal chair in the center of a damp, echoing warehouse. A single industrial light hung above me, swinging slightly in the draft, casting nauseating, shifting shadows against the corrugated metal walls.

Marcus Thorne stood in front of me. He had taken off his jacket to reveal sweat stains on his dress shirt. His knuckles were bloody.

"You're stubborn, Julian," Thorne sighed, shaking his hand out. "I respect that. Professional courtesy. But the nanny isn't coming. And even if he does, what’s he going to do? Bake me a cake?"

I spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete floor.

"You didn't check his references," I rasped. My voice was wrecked, my throat raw from shouting when they grabbed me.

Thorne laughed. "The Nanny? Ezra? Please. I ran a background check. He’s a nobody. No record. No history. He’s a blank slate."

"Exactly," I whispered, lifting my head to look at him with a swollen eye. "No record means he was never caught. No history means it was redacted."

I grinned, my teeth stained red.

"You think you kidnapped a businessman, Marcus. But you just stole the favorite toy of a monster."

Thorne frowned. He wiped his bloody knuckles on a rag. He turned to one of his goons—a massive guy holding an AR-15 near the rolling metal door.

"Any sign of the car?"

"Nothing yet, Boss. Perimeter is clear."

"He’s running," Thorne sneered, turning back to me. "He took the kid and ran. He’s probably halfway to Heathrow by now. You’re alone, Julian. Give me the encryption key."

"No."

Thorne pulled a knife from his belt. "Then I start taking fingers. Let's see how well you type without a pinky."

He stepped closer.

CLICK.

The sound was loud and mechanical in the cavernous room.

The floodlights mounted on the catwalks flickered. Once. Twice.

Then they died.

The warehouse plunged into darkness, save for the single, dim bulb swinging directly above my head. It created a cone of light, leaving the rest of the room—the catwalks, the corners, the exit—in pitch blackness.

"What the hell?" Thorne barked, spinning around. "Get the backup generator!"

"I’m on it," a guard shouted from the darkness near the south wall.

We heard heavy footsteps running toward the fuse box.

Then a thud.

Then a soft, wet gurgle.

Then the sound of a body hitting the floor.

Silence.

"Mike?" Thorne called out, his voice echoing.

No answer.

"Mike, report!"

Nothing.

The other three guards raised their rifles, aiming blindly into the dark. I could see their hands shaking. They couldn't see anything beyond the circle of light I was sitting in.

"He cut the power," one guard whispered, backing up until he hit a crate. "He's here."

"It's one nanny!" Thorne shouted, though his voice cracked. "He’s wearing a sweater vest! Light him up!"

The guards opened fire into the shadows. Muzzle flashes lit up the room in strobe-light bursts. RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT. The noise was deafening. Bullets sparked off the metal walls.

When the firing stopped, the silence was heavier than before.

"Did you get him?" Thorne asked, breathless.

From the darkness, a voice floated out. It was soft. Melodic. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere.

"Goldilocks broke into the house..."

The guard on the left screamed.

He was yanked backward into the shadows as if a hook had caught him. His rifle clattered across the floor, sliding into the light.

"Jesus Christ!" the second guard yelled, spinning in circles. "Where is he?!"

"But she forgot to check the corners..."

A knife flew out of the dark.

It took the second guard in the throat. He didn't scream. He just grabbed his neck, making a terrible choking sound, and fell to his knees.

Thorne scrambled backward, pulling a handgun from his waistband. He grabbed the back of my chair, cowering behind me, using me as a shield. He pressed the cold barrel of the gun to my temple.

"Come out!" Thorne screamed at the dark. "Come out or I blow his brains out! I swear to God!"

I closed my eyes. I could feel Thorne shaking against the back of the chair.

"You can't threaten a ghost, Marcus," I whispered.

The last guard—the one near the door—turned to run.

He didn't make it.

A shape dropped from the catwalks above. Silent. Fast.

I saw a flash of silver. The guard crumpled without a sound.

Then, the shape stepped into the light.

Ezra.

He wasn't wearing his glasses. He wasn't wearing a sweater. He was in a white t-shirt stained with grease and dirt, a black tactical vest loaded with magazines, and cargo pants. He held a machete in one hand and a suppressed pistol in the other.

He was covered in blood. None of it looked like his.

He stopped ten feet away, just at the edge of the light. He looked at me. His eyes scanned my bruises, my split lip, the zip ties cutting into my wrists.

His expression didn't change. It was dead calm. But the air around him crackled with a violence so potent it tasted like copper.

"Let him go, Thorne," Ezra said. His voice was conversational. "And I’ll make it quick."

"Stay back!" Thorne shrieked, pressing the gun harder against my skull. "Drop the knife! Drop the gun!"

Ezra tilted his head.

"You're holding the gun wrong," Ezra noted. "Your grip is too loose. The recoil will make you miss."

"Shut up!"

"And your finger," Ezra continued, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. "It’s trembling on the trigger. You're flooded with cortisol. Your peripheral vision is failing. Your heart rate is probably one-forty."

"I said stay back!"

"Look at me, Marcus," Ezra commanded.

Thorne looked.

Ezra opened his hand. He dropped the machete.

It clanged loudly on the concrete.

Thorne flinched at the noise. His eyes darted to the floor for a fraction of a second.

Thwip.

Ezra fired from the hip. One shot.

I felt the heat of the bullet pass my ear.

Thorne screamed, dropping the gun. His hand—or what was left of it—was a ruin of red. Ezra’s bullet had gone straight through his wrist, shattering the bone.

Thorne fell back, clutching his arm, curling into a ball of agony.

Ezra was on him before he hit the ground.

Ezra kicked Thorne in the chest, sending him sliding across the floor until he hit the wall. He didn't look at him. He walked straight to me.

He holstered his gun. He pulled a smaller knife from his vest and sliced the zip ties on my wrists and ankles in two smooth motions.

I slumped forward. Ezra caught me.

He knelt, holding me up. His hands—usually so gentle—were gripping me hard, checking for broken bones.

"Julian," he whispered. "Status?"

"Alive," I coughed, leaning into him. "Thanks to the Nanny."

Ezra touched my split lip. His eyes flared with a cold, blue fire.

"He hit you."

"Yeah."

Ezra stood up. He turned to Thorne, who was sobbing on the floor, trying to crawl away into the darkness.

"Ezra, don't," I said weakly. Not because I wanted Thorne to live—I wanted him dead—but because I didn't want Ezra to go to that place he couldn't come back from.

Ezra didn't listen.

He walked over to Thorne. He picked up the machete he had dropped.

He stood over the rival Fixer.

"You entered the den," Ezra whispered to the sobbing man. "You threatened the pack. And you damaged the Alpha."

Thorne looked up, snot and tears running down his face. "Please. I’ll give you money. I’ll leave the country. I swear!"

Ezra adjusted his grip on the blade.

"Goldilocks doesn't get to leave the forest, Marcus."

Ezra raised the blade.

I looked away.

Thwack.

Silence.

I looked back. It was over.

Ezra cleaned the blade on Thorne’s shirt. He sheathed it.

He walked back to me. He looked at the c*****e around us—four dead men, a ruined warehouse, a nightmare come to life.

Then, he reached into his tactical vest pocket.

He pulled out a small, travel-sized pack of wet wipes.

"You have blood on your face, Julian," he murmured, gently wiping my cheek. "We can't let Leo see you like this."

I stared at him. I looked at the monster who had just slaughtered a squad of mercenaries to get to me.

I grabbed his hand, pressing his bloody knuckles to my lips.

"Let's go home, Ezra."

Ezra smiled. It was small, tired, and real.

"Yes, boss. But you're driving. I’m technically off the clock."