My Twins Called the Billionaire I Never Told Them About When I Collapsed, and He Broke When They Called Him Daddy - Spotlight8

Forty-eight hours later.

A thick, icy fog blanketed Blackwood Bay, an isolated, rocky stretch of coast forty miles north of Seattle. High on a cliff overlooking the churning grey ocean stood an abandoned nineteenth-century lighthouse, its rusted iron lantern room looming like a dark sentinel against the foggy sky.

This was Victor Mercer’s primary safehouse in the Pacific Northwest—a location uncovered by Griffin’s private intelligence network after tracking the encrypted phone signal used to coordinate the arson on Bainbridge Island.

Four black tactical SUVs sat idling in the dense pine woods three hundred yards from the lighthouse base. Inside the lead vehicle, Griffin Drake adjusted the dark tactical vest strapped over his black sweater.

Beside him sat Marcus Vance, along with a team of six elite, heavily armed private security contractors led by a former Special Forces commander named Cole.

"Thermal imaging shows three individuals inside the lighthouse," Cole reported, pointing to a glowing monitor on the SUV’s console. "One on the ground floor, one near the stairs, and one high up in the lantern room. That's Victor Mercer."

Griffin nodded, his face sculpted out of ice. "No lethal force unless necessary. I want Victor alive. He answers for what he did to my family."

"Understood, sir," Cole said, signaling his team. "Moving in."

Sloan remained at the mountain lodge with the girls under heavy guard, but her words echoed in Griffin’s mind with crystal clarity: Finish it.

The tactical team moved through the foggy forest like ghosts, their boots silent on the pine needles. Griffin followed close behind, holding a heavy tactical flashlight, his pulse calm, steady, and utterly focused.

They reached the rusted iron door of the lighthouse base. Cole set a small, silent breach charge against the lock.

POP.

The heavy door swung open. The team flooded inside.

Suppressed gunshots echoed softly in the damp interior as the two guards on the lower levels were neutralized instantly before they could raise their weapons.

Griffin stepped over the unconscious guards, looking up the winding, spiral iron staircase that stretched seventy feet into the darkness above.

"Stay here and secure the perimeter," Griffin commanded Cole.

"Mr. Drake, that’s against protocol—"

"I’m going up alone," Griffin said, his baritone voice leaving no room for argument.

He climbed the iron stairs slowly, his footsteps echoing in the hollow stone tower. Step by step, he ascended toward the lantern room, the cold sea wind howling through cracked glass windows along the shaft.

When Griffin pushed open the heavy brass trapdoor leading into the top lantern room, he stepped out onto the circular observation floor.

Standing by the massive glass lenses looking out at the foggy ocean was a broad-shouldered man in his late fifties. Victor Mercer wore a heavy leather coat, his short grey hair cut with military precision, his face scarred along the left jawline.

In his hand, Victor held a glass of brandy. He didn't turn around when Griffin stepped into the room.

"You're faster than your father was, Griffin," Victor said, his voice raspy and deep like grinding stones. "John Drake took three months to find my father in Zurich. You found me in two days."

"It's over, Victor," Griffin said coldly, stepping onto the iron floorboards. "Your men downstairs are incapacitated. Police and federal agents are currently raiding your offshore logistics accounts in Vancouver. You have nowhere left to run."

Victor slowly turned around, taking a sip of his brandy. His grey eyes were cold, dead, devoid of humanity. "You think this is about money? You think I care about Mercer Holdings or Julian’s pathetic shares?"

Victor let out a harsh, dry laugh. "Forty years ago, your father and my father built an empire together. And when the first major scandal hit, your father threw mine to the wolves. He wiped my branch of the family out of the history books, made us ghosts, and kept all the wealth for himself."

"My father is dead," Griffin said fiercely. "My mother is dead. The debt you think you are collecting does not belong to my eight-year-old daughters!"

"The bloodline carries the debt!" Victor roared, smashing his glass against the stone wall, the shards spraying across the floor. He pulled a heavy tactical pistol from inside his coat, aiming it directly at Griffin’s chest. "Your mother took your woman away ten years ago. Genevieve failed to break you. But I am going to make sure you spend the rest of your life watching everything you love burn to ash!"

Griffin didn't flinch. He didn't step back.

"You made one mistake, Victor," Griffin whispered, his voice dangerously soft.

Victor frowned slightly, his finger tightening on the trigger. "What mistake?"

"You assumed I came up those stairs alone."

Before Victor could react, a blinding red laser dot appeared on the center of Victor’s forehead through the shattered lighthouse glass.

A high-powered sniper rifle round shattered the heavy window frame, striking the pistol in Victor’s hand with surgical precision. The weapon blew out of Victor’s grip, spinning across the floor.

Before Victor could recover, Griffin lunged forward with explosive speed.

He tackled Victor against the heavy brass lantern frame, slamming his fist into Victor’s jaw. Victor stumbled back, gasping, trying to strike back, but Griffin dodged the strike, grabbing Victor by the throat and slamming him violently against the iron railing overlooking the seventy-foot drop.

"It ends today," Griffin growled, his emerald eyes blazing with terrifying fury, his grip choking the air from Victor’s lungs.

Victor struggled, his face turning purple, looking into the eyes of the man he had tried to destroy—and seeing only an unstoppable wall of steel.

Sirens began to wail down on the coastal road, red and blue lights cutting through the thick coastal fog as federal agents and local police arrived at the scene.

Griffin threw Victor onto the iron floor, pinning him down as Cole and the tactical team flooded through the trapdoor, placing heavy flex-cuffs on the disgraced mercenary.