The Surrogacy Agreement Stated the Twins Weren't His to Keep, but When Julian Vance Saw How His Daughters and Son Responded to the Barista, He Knew Someone Was Going to Bleed for Stealing His Family.

Victor Volkov was a massive man in his late fifties, wearing a tailored charcoal overcoat over a bulletproof vest, his face scarred from an old dock explosion that had left his left eye cloudy and dead. In his right hand, he held a heavy electronic detonator wired to two blocks of C4 explosives affixed to the vault doors.

"Drop the rifles, Vance!" Volkov barked, his men raising their weapons instantly, creating a lethal crossfire corridor in the narrow basement hallway. "Or I blow the vault right now, and the ceiling comes down on all our heads!"

Julian didn't lower his carbine. He stepped slightly in front of Clara, his body shielding hers. "If you blow those explosives, Victor, you destroy the only leverage keeping the FBI from freezing your European accounts. You need those donor logs intact just as much as I do."

"I don't need leverage anymore, Julian," Volkov sneered, his cloudy eye fixing on Clara with chilling malice. "I have a private jet waiting at the private airstrip in Gary. Once this building burns, I’m gone. But I must admit, I never expected the great Julian Vance to marry a coffee shop peasant just to save his PR image."

"I didn't marry her for PR," Julian said, his voice eerily level, his finger resting flat against his trigger guard. "I married her because she’s the mother of my children. And you put a bounty on their heads."

Volkov laughed—a wet, ugly sound that echoed off the concrete pipes. "They were my property, Vance! I funded Vanguard! I paid for the embryo harvesting! Those triplets were supposed to be sold to a Mexican cartel boss who wanted clean American passports for his heirs! Thorne got greedy and sold them to you instead when your wife’s incubator failed!"

The words hit Clara like a physical blow. The absolute, systemic evil of what had happened to her babies—treated like cargo, traded between syndicates—ignited a rage so pure it burned away every remaining trace of fear.

"They aren't property," Clara said, her voice ringing out clearly in the dark hallway. She stepped out from behind Julian’s shadow, her amber eyes locked onto Volkov’s scarred face. "They are human beings. They are my children. And you are going to die in this basement."

Volkov’s lip curled into a sneer. "You talk brave for a bitch in an apron—"

He never finished the sentence.

Above them, the diversionary explosion initiated by Team Beta rocked the ground floor lobby, shaking the sub-basement ceiling and raining dust and plaster down upon the hallway.