Chapter 6 - Blood and LimestoneThe tranquility of the morning vanished in a heartbeat.
Victor released my hand, his face transforming instantly from gentle warmth into the cold, calculating mask of a battlefield commander. He drew a sleek, suppressed Sig Sauer P226 from a concealed shoulder holster beneath his shirt with practiced, lethal efficiency.
“Stay in the pantry,” Victor ordered, his voice non-negotiable. “There’s a reinforced panic room behind the back shelving unit. If the door breaches, lock yourself inside and don't open it for anyone except me or Marco.”
“Victor, no,” I protested, standing up from my chair. “I’m not hiding while you walk into a firefight! Derek must have tipped off the Marcones—they’re coming to clean house before the Feds trace the shell companies back to New York!”
“Precisely why you need to be safe,” Victor snapped, gripping my shoulders and looking directly into my eyes with fierce, absolute intensity. “Listen to me, Lena. I didn't bring you out of that hell just to watch you die in mine. Get in the panic room. Now.”
Before I could argue further, the sound of shattered glass echoed from the front foyer. Automatic gunfire erupted—sharp, concussive bursts that rattled the floorboards beneath our feet.
Victor didn't hesitate. He spun around and sprinted down the hallway toward the sound of the breach, vanishing into the smoke and chaos.
My heart hammered in my throat. Every instinct screamed at me to run for the panic room, but my eyes caught sight of the auxiliary security terminal glowing on the kitchen desk—the master control panel for the estate’s closed-circuit cameras and automated perimeter defenses.
If the Marcone hit squad had breached the eastern wall, they were relying on blind spots in the lower courtyard to flank Victor’s men.
Instead of running to the pantry, I threw myself into the chair before the security console. My fingers flew across the keyboard, routing power from the secondary generator directly to the courtyard sonic defense turrets and the automated steel security shutters.
On the central monitor, I watched two armed mercenaries in tactical black gear creeping along the limestone wall of the eastern garden, their assault rifles raised, sweeping the windows of the ground-floor library where Marco and two guards were pinned down by suppressive fire.
Got you, I whispered.
I hit the manual override, triggering the exterior acoustic disorientation arrays and slamming the heavy steel shutters down over the library windows just as a volley of rifle fire struck the glass. The mercenaries stumbled backward, disoriented by the sudden sonic blast.
Instantly, Victor appeared from around the stone pillar on the screen. He moved with terrifying grace, firing two controlled shots that neutralized the threat before the mercenaries could recover their footing.
“Clear!” Victor shouted into his comm-link, his voice crackling through the estate’s speaker system.
I let out a ragged, shaking breath, slumping back in the chair. We had survived the first wave. But as I looked at the secondary monitor displaying the outer perimeter gates, a cold dread pooled in my stomach.
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A second armored convoy was tearing up the gravel driveway, and the license plates weren't New York.
They belonged to federal law enforcement.
