The explosion ripped through the night at exactly 3:47 a.m.Melissa shot awake as the windows in her room rattled violently, the sound of shattering glass and screaming alarms tearing through the silence. Her bed trembled beneath her, and for one confused second, she thought she was trapped inside a nightmare.Then the smell hit her.Smoke.Fire.Her heart lurched violently as she threw off the blankets and stumbled toward the window. The moment she looked outside, her blood turned cold.The guest house was burning.Flames climbed the walls in furious waves of orange and red, swallowing the building piece by piece. Thick black smoke curled into the dark sky while sparks exploded into the air like fireworks from hell.And then she remembered.Claire.Claire was inside.Melissa did not stop to think. Fear erased every rational thought from her mind. She did not think about danger or consequences or whether the building might collapse. All she could think about was the pregnant woman tra

The safe house looked like an ordinary suburban home from the outside, but beneath the clean white walls and trimmed hedges, it was built like a military bunker. Bulletproof windows sealed every room. Reinforced steel doors protected every entrance. Security cameras watched every inch of the property without a single blind spot. A panic room sat hidden beneath the basement, stocked with enough supplies to survive a siege. Cole’s team had swept the house three separate times before allowing anyone inside.Even then, nobody truly relaxed.At four thirty in the morning, the house sat in heavy silence.Melissa remained curled in an armchair in the living room, wrapped tightly in a gray blanket as exhaustion weighed on her body like concrete. Across from her, Claire slept on the couch beneath the dim glow of a table lamp, her breathing uneven but peaceful enough to calm the room slightly. Jason sat beside her, alert despite the exhaustion carved into his face, one hand resting protectively