Page 96 of Hidden

It’s not the case files. It’s not anything from my system. It’s my family.

Mason outside the house three days ago. Declan at the university library. Lileah at Grounds, yesterday. An exterior shot of my parents' house, it’s showing the front door, and the number is clearly visible.

Then the last image loads. It’s this house.

Our house, it’s showing the front, the side entrance, and the window of the room I'm sitting in right now.

The scene blinks and I’m looking at my house as a live feed, what the fuck?

I'm out of the chair as the video plays. I pull all the wires out. ll of them: the power, the ethernet, every physical connection to the rig, I pull them all out fast. The monitors die. I close the laptop, pull its battery, and pocket the burner phone. I cross to the router in the corner and kill the WIFI at the hardware level, not the software level, but the actual switch on the device.

I grab my gun from my drawer, then I'm out the door and down the stairs.

Mason is in the kitchen. Declan’s on the sofa. Both of them look up when I come through the door at a speed that registers immediately.

"Phones off," I say. "Now, not airplane mode. Off."

Mason stands. "What…"

"Off, Mason. Now." I'm already moving to the main router panel in the hallway, the household system, and killing it at the source. "They're in the system. They have eyes on the house."

Declan is on his feet before I've finished speaking. His phone is already powering down, and his keys are in his hand.

"How long?” Declan asks.

"Don't know. Recent." I check the front window from the side, not straight on. The street outside looks ordinary, but that means nothing. "Hayden. Call him from the landline, tell him to get to Lileah now. Don't explain. Just go."

Mason is already moving to the landline on the kitchen wall, the one we've had since we moved in and never used because nobody uses landlines these days.

I check the back door, it’s locked. The side entrance is locked, too.

My pulse is completely even. That's Cain’s training, fifteen years of it, it’s the discipline of a mind that doesn't go loud when it should go quiet.

"Hayden's going," Mason says from the kitchen.

"Good."

"Miles." His voice has a different quality now. "What exactly did they…"

The lights go out; we are in complete darkness. Every light in the house simultaneously goes off, which means they’ve cut us off at the mains. They’re coming.

"Be ready," I say.

The front door comes off its hinges as they storm the house.

There are three of them. Maybe four, it’s hard to count in the dark. They’re moving fast, it’s a coordinated entry of people who have done this many times before. Fuck.

Two come straight for me.

The first one is fast. I sidestep the initial rush, get my elbow into his throat on the way past, it’s not clean, only glancing, but enough to slow him down. The second one is bigger and hits me from the left before I've fully reset, he drives his shoulder into my ribs, driving me back into the wall.

The impact knocks the breath out of me, but I don't go down, not without a fucking fight.

My elbow finds his face on the way up, it catches his nose, and I hear the crunch of cartilage. He pulls back; I get my hands on his jacket and use his own momentum to redirect him into the wall.

I can hear Mason behind me. He's holding his own.

The first guy comes back. He comes low this time and gets his arms around my waist before I can get my gun clear, then we're on the floor and the gun skids somewhere in the dark.