Chapter 19 - The Lioness
"No!" The scream ripped from my throat as I watched the monitor.
Vance wasn't just going to shoot Marcus. He was gesturing toward the house, demanding the access codes. He knew Noah was inside the panic room, and he was using Marcus’s life as the key to break the lock.
Through the external audio feed on the console, Vance’s voice came through cold and crystalline:
"Open the vault, Clara! Or Detective Ruiz dies on your front lawn right now! You have five seconds!"
My hands shook, but my mind suddenly grew terrifyingly still. The panic vanished, replaced by an ice-cold, crystalline focus.
I looked at the auxiliary control board beside the safe room door. Marcus had designed this system himself. He had installed defense mechanisms that the local authorities didn't even know existed—designed specifically in case the house came under siege.
"Maria," I said without looking back. "Hold Noah. Cover his ears."
I flipped the red master breaker switch on the console.
The exterior floodlights on the front grounds—sixteen high-output stadium-grade strobe lights—ignited simultaneously with twenty thousand lumens of blinding white light, cycling at an agonizing twenty flashes per second.
Through the camera, I saw Vance stumble backward, clutching his eyes, completely blinded and disoriented by the sensory assault.
At the same instant, I hit the secondary trigger. The subterranean high-pressure fire suppression cannons installed beneath the driveway lawn erupted, blasting four hundred gallons of pressurized foam and water directly across the driveway.
Vance was swept off his feet, his weapon flying from his grip and clattering into the flooded mud.
Marcus, who knew the layout of the property blindfolded, didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. Even injured, even bleeding, he lunged forward through the water, tackled Vance into the mud, and drove his forearm into the man’s throat, pinning him to the ground while pressing his service weapon against Vance’s temple.
"Move," Marcus’s voice rasped over the outdoor microphone, ragged with adrenaline and pain, "and I swear to God this will be the last breath you ever take."
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Sirens wailed in the distance. Blue and red flashing lights were already cutting through the trees at the end of the road.
The federal marshals, alerted by our earlier encounter at the docks, had finally arrived.