The first thing Silas Thorne noticed when he entered his private suite that Tuesday was not the view of the harbor, not the stack of high-stakes contracts waiting for his signature, and not the receptionist who usually managed his schedule with military precision.

Inside the panic room, the twins were sitting on a tactical crate. Tobias was clutching his yellow windbreaker. Elias was holding a heavy steel flashlight like a bat.

When Silas entered, Elias lowered the flashlight.

Silas dropped to his knees, disregarding his bespoke suit, and pulled both boys into his chest. It was an involuntary, desperate movement. They were small, fragile, and entirely dependent on him. For the first time in his life, Silas Thorne, the ruthless conqueror of Wall Street, felt true, paralyzing fear.

"Are you hurt?" Silas asked, pulling back to inspect them.

"No," Tobias said quietly. "Are the bad men gone?"

"They're gone. And they are never coming back," Silas vowed.

Elias looked at Silas, his amber eyes calculating. "Mommy said you were scary. She said you were the scariest man she knew."

"She did, did she?"

Elias nodded. "She said that's why we had to come to you. Because the monsters are afraid of you."

Silas stood up, his jaw set. Clara had always understood him better than anyone.

"She was right," Silas said.

Later that night, after moving to a secondary, underground bunker facility owned by Thorne Global, Silas and Elias sat at a metal table. Elias had insisted on unpacking his rucksack himself.

He pulled out a heavily annotated map of the Pacific Northwest.

"Mommy said if she got lost, we should look where it rains all the time," Elias said, pointing to a circled area in rural Washington State.