Chapter 13 - Breaching the Citadel
The oak doors of the second-floor gallery exploded inward with a deafening crack. Splinters of hand-carved mahogany rained down across the Persian runner as two tactical operators in night-vision gear swung around the doorframe, their weapon lights cutting through the darkness in blinding white beams.
"Clear left!" one barked.
*Bang! Bang!*
The heavy Colt roared in the confined hallway. The recoil slammed through my wrists, but the two .45-caliber slugs struck the lead operator dead center in his chest plate. The kinetic force threw him backward into his comrade, their rifles tangling as they crashed into the marble balustrade.
"Down! He's armed!" the second man screamed, rolling across the floor and bringing his submachine gun up to bear.
I didn't wait. I spun on my heel, darting down the narrow servant corridor that ran parallel to the gallery. The walls erupted around me—plaster spraying in chalky clouds, priceless ancestral portraits shredded into ribbons by a hail of suppressed automatic fire. The sound was like a thousand whips cracking simultaneously in an echo chamber.
Behind me, in the study, the hidden panel behind the southern hearth had already slid shut with a dull, subterranean thud. Marcus had gotten Lily and Margaret into the Architect's Passage. They had three minutes before Victor’s sweepers realized the library was empty.
I reached the service elevator alcove, my lungs burning, the scent of cordite and pulverized drywall choking my throat. I dropped the empty magazine from the Colt, slammed in a fresh seven-round clip, and took a jagged breath.
"Julian," Victor Vance’s voice purred from the bottom of the grand staircase.
He hadn't run. He was walking up the central stairs, his ebony cane tapping rhythmically against the blood-stained marble steps.
"You always possessed your mother’s stubborn romanticism," Victor called out, his tone conversational, laced with icy amusement. "A banker playing soldier. It’s pathetic, boy. Richard thought he could outsmart me with dummy corporations in the Caymans. Look where it brought him. Do you truly want your little girl to watch you bleed out on the stairs before I take her to Zurich?"
I stayed pressed against the shadows behind the alcove pillar, counting the footsteps. Four boots. Two men flanking him.
"Clara never loved this family, Victor!" I yelled back, deliberately projecting my voice toward the opposite end of the gallery to draw their focus. "She hated what this money did to people! If she locked that cipher to Lily, she did it to bury you, not to save us!"
"Clara was a brilliant instrument," Victor chuckled, the sound dry as dead leaves. "She understood leverage. She knew that without the child, neither you nor I could touch the offshore reserves. But she made one fatal miscalculation. She believed you had the strength to protect what she left behind."
Victor reached the landing. I could see the reflection of his tailored coat in the mirrored console table at the corner of the corridor. One operator moved forward, sweeping his rifle toward the master suite. The second operator stayed half a step behind Victor, his eyes darting toward the servant corridor.
*Now.*
I kicked open the heavy oak linen closet door with all my weight, slamming it directly into the flank of the second operator. The impact threw his aim off, his rifle discharging harmlessly into the ceiling. Before he could recover, I stepped into the gap, drove the steel barrel of the Colt under his jaw, and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot shook the walls. The man dropped like a severed marionette.
The lead operator spun around, his weapon leveling at my chest—but a high-pitched, mechanical screech suddenly tore through the hallway.
From the service elevator shaft, the heavy steel dumbwaiter cables severed. Marcus hadn't just fled—he had reached the lower mechanical room and triggered the emergency fire curtains. A five-hundred-pound iron fire door dropped from the ceiling ceiling tracks with catastrophic momentum, crushing the lead operator's rifle barrel and pinning his arm to the marble floor with a sickening crunch of bone.
The operator screamed, pinned and helpless.
Victor Vance did not flinch. He did not run.
He stood there in the haze of smoke and drifting plaster, his pale eyes locked onto mine across a distance of ten feet. His gloved hand rested placidly on the silver head of his cane.
"Impressive," Victor murmured, his lips curving into a thin, predatory smile. "A cornered rat always bites hardest. But look behind you, Julian."
My spine prickled with instant, freezing dread.
From the shadows at the far end of the corridor, a red laser dot appeared on the center of my chest.
May you like
"Drop the weapon, Mr. Thorne," a low, accented voice ordered from the darkness. "Or the next round takes your daughter through the floorboards below."
***