Emma’s grandmother smiled and told her they had “run out” of Disney tickets, but she had no idea what I was about to cancel from my phone. / Chapter 84 / 111

Chapter 84 - The Iron Gauntlet

The sound of shattering wood and tactical commands echoed up the marble stairway.

"Breach! Clear the foyer! Target is on the upper level!"

I didn't wait to be pinned down. Dropping low against the banister, I slipped down the narrow service hallway that ran behind the library folios—a servant's passage designed in the late nineteenth century that Beatrice had long since forgotten existed.

The walls were rough, unpainted plaster, smelling of dry rot and copper piping. In my hand, the brass key felt freezing cold.

*00:39:15.*

The countdown was eating away my time, second by agonizing second. Even if I broke through this perimeter, the drive to the Blackwood terminal was eighteen miles of winding mountain roads. At sixty miles an hour, it would take twenty minutes under ideal conditions—and these roads were slick with morning frost.

I reached the bottom of the spiral iron service stairs that led into the estate's subterranean wine cellar. Above me, the rhythmic, heavy thud of combat boots shook dust from the ceiling rafters.

"Downstairs! Check the cellar access!" a voice shouted from the kitchen.

I ducked behind a row of towering oak wine racks, holding my breath. A beam of white tactical light sliced through the dusty air, sweeping across the bottles of fifty-year-old vintage Bordeaux.

The mercenary walked slowly, his boots crunching on stray fragments of broken glass. He carried a suppressed submachine gun, his eyes scanning the shadows behind the racks.

I glanced to my right. On the workbench near the barrel taps lay a heavy steel spanner used for tightening the cask hoops.

I waited until the flashlight beam swept past my hiding spot. As the man took one more step forward, his weapon pointing toward the empty boiler room, I lunged from the shadow of the racks.

I brought the steel spanner down across his forearm with all the momentum of my body. The submachine gun clattered to the concrete floor. Before he could cry out, I drove my shoulder into his chest, pinning him against the heavy oak barrels, and clamped my left hand over his mouth.

He thrashed violently, reaching for a combat knife strapped to his vest. I wrenched his arm back, twisting the joint until he went limp, then drove the heel of my boot behind his knee. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as I stripped the weapon, the spare magazines, and the tactical radio from his harness.

I clicked the radio's push-to-talk button, listening.

"...Team B, status? We have the grandmother secured in the sitting room. She claims the boy has an override cipher. Terminate on sight if he moves toward the garage."

"Copy," a voice replied. "Perimeter vehicle is in position at the west gate. Nothing leaves."

I didn't bother using the radio. I slung the carbine across my chest, grabbed the keys from the mercenary's belt, and kicked open the heavy iron door that led into the underground garage ramp.

Parked in the underground bay was not Beatrice’s luxury sedan, but a black, modified utility pickup truck the contractors had used to haul their breaching gear. The keys were still hanging from the ignition cylinder.

I leaped into the cab, slammed the door, and turned the key. The heavy turbo-diesel engine roared to life with a deep, guttural shake that echoed through the subterranean concrete chamber.

*00:35:40.*

I threw the truck into reverse, backed hard out of the bay, then slammed the gear selector into drive. I stomped the accelerator to the floorboards.

The truck surged forward up the steep concrete ramp. Directly ahead, the reinforced wooden garage doors were closed and locked from the outside.

"Brace," I muttered between clenched teeth, ducking my head beneath the level of the dashboard.

The heavy steel grille guard of the pickup slammed into the double doors with the force of an artillery shell. Timber splintered, iron hinges snapped with deafening shrieks, and the truck burst through into the blinding dawn light of the service yard.

Two mercenaries stationed by the perimeter fence dove out of the way as the truck roared past, throwing plumes of gravel and wet dirt into the air. Gunfire cracked behind me—rounds pinging off the heavy steel tailgate and shattering the rear window glass into a thousand spiderweb fractures.

I didn't touch the brakes. I swung the wheel hard to the left, crashing through the secondary wooden gate of the orchard, and pointed the truck down the steep, rutted logging trail that led directly to Highway 9.

In the rearview mirror, smoke was already rising from the manor behind me. Victor's men were setting the estate on fire to erase the evidence.