He Opened the Nursery Door and Found His Mother Attacking His Wife—Then Her Shocking Accusation Revealed a Secret That Could Destroy Their Entire Family. / Chapter 68 / 80

Chapter 68 - The Ambush at Black Ridge Tunnel

Total darkness swallowed the world.

The Black Ridge Tunnel was a five-mile bore through the absolute granite core of the mountain range. Inside, the roar of the freight train's twin diesel engines was magnified into an ear-splitting, concussive thunder that vibrated through every bone in David’s skull.

David crawled along the roof of the hopper car, fighting the freezing draft that whistled through the subterranean cavern. He dropped through the maintenance hatch between cars, dropping down onto the steel coupling platform where Leah was crouched with the children, shielded inside the hollow undercarriage of the gravel car.

When Leah saw his shadow, her weapon rose instantly before dropping in profound relief.

"David!" she cried against the noise, pulling him into the narrow space. "There’s another train beside us! I can feel the vibrations through the rails!"

"I know," David said, his voice grim in the gloom. "It’s Arthur. He’s running parallel on the passenger express line."

"Why doesn't he just derail us?" Leah asked, her hand tightening around Maya, who was trembling violently from the sensory overload of the tunnel.

"Because he needs me intact," David said. "Every cell in my body is his cure. If this train crashes and I die, Arthur dies with me."

Suddenly, the overhead emergency floodlights of the tunnel flared to life.

The Syndicate had seized the tunnel's regional electrical grid. Harsh, sodium-yellow lights flickered along the vaulted rock ceiling every hundred feet, casting grotesque, shifting shadows across the speeding trains.

To their left, barely six feet away on the parallel track, the chrome-sided Sterling Express pulled level with their freight hopper.

The tinted bulletproof windows of the executive coaches were dark, but with a pneumatic hiss, the hydraulic exterior side doors of the third coach slid open.

Standing inside the brilliantly illuminated, mahogany-lined interior of the luxury railcar were six Cardinal shock troopers in full tactical breach armor. But they did not advance first.

Behind them, seated in a high-backed leather wheelchair hooked to a mobile intravenous dialysis rack, was Arthur Sterling.

The Chairman’s face was no longer composed with aristocratic arrogance. In the harsh fluorescent light of the car, his skin looked translucent, like parchment stretched over a skull. Dark, necrotic veins spidered across his temples, and his breathing was assisted by a rhythmic, hissing oxygen pump. His hypnotic blue eyes—David’s eyes—were wild with the feverish, desperate madness of a dying god.

Beside Arthur’s wheelchair stood a woman in a straitjacket-style white restraint harness. Her graying hair was matted, her face hollowed by decades of psychiatric sedation, but her eyes were wide, clear, and filled with a horrifying, agonizing sanity.

David felt the breath leave his chest. His heart slammed against his ribs until he thought his sternum would crack.

"Mother..." David whispered.

Evelyn Sterling looked across the narrow, terrifying gap between the two roaring trains. Her gaze locked directly onto David, then slid downward to the bundle in Leah’s arms.

Tears cut through the grime on the old woman's cheeks.

"David..." Evelyn screamed across the void, her voice barely audible over the roaring steel wheels. "Don't look at his eyes! Jump, David! Jump into the dark! Don't let him take your mind!"

Arthur raised his hand, his trembling fingers signaling the shock troopers.

"Secure my body," Arthur wheezed into his microphone. "Kill the girl. Bring me my son."