Part 2: “Don’t Move—Follow Me,” the Housekeeper’s Son Whispered to the Millionaire Before His Wife’s Black Car Arrived; Minutes Later, a Terrifying Secret Nearly Sent Him to the Bottom of a California Reservoir...

Before Nathan could demand an answer, the heavy plate glass of the sixty-eighth-floor panoramic window behind Caroline cracked with a microscopic *tink*.

It wasn't a stone. It was a high-velocity, armor-piercing round fired from a sniper rifle positioned on the skyscraper across the boulevard.

The bullet struck Caroline cleanly through the center of her forehead.

She didn't scream. Her eyes went wide, frozen in shock, before her knees folded beneath her and she collapsed lifeless onto the Persian carpet.

"SNIPER!" the lead marshal roared, tackling Arthur Pendelton to the ground as a deafening volley of suppressed fire shattered the massive glass wall into a hurricane of diamond-like shards.

Nathan hit the deck, rolling behind the heavy mahogany podium as glass rained down around him. Panic erupted. Board members crawled frantically toward the exits, screaming, while federal agents returned blind fire toward the distant rooftop across the street.

Nathan’s phone buzzed violently against his chest on the floor.

He crawled on his belly, shielding his head from falling debris, and answered the line.

"Whitaker! Get out of that room!" Frank Keller’s voice was frantic, screaming over the sound of automatic gunfire on his end of the connection.

"Frank! Caroline is dead—sniper through the window!" Nathan shouted, coughing on plaster dust. "Where are Elena and Noah? Are they safe?"

"Nathan, they found us," Frank yelled, his voice punctuated by the roar of shotgun blasts and breaking glass. "They breached the warehouse! It wasn't Caroline’s men—these are tier-one operatives! They didn't come to kill Noah... they came to *take* him!"

Nathan’s heart stopped. "Take him? Why would they take Noah?"

"Because of who his father was!" Frank’s voice cut out into static, followed by the terrifying sound of a young boy screaming: *“MR. WHITAKER! HELP ME!”*

The line went dead.