Chapter 26 - The Ambush in the Dark
My mind raced. Every second ticked like a detonator. If I gave her the key, she would execute us anyway to leave no witnesses. If I refused, Lauren would die.
Marcus didn't wait for my decision.
With his uninjured right arm, he whipped a tactical flash-bang grenade from his vest belt, pulled the pin with his teeth, and slammed it against the marble hearth.
"Cover your eyes!" Marcus roared.
A blinding magnesium blast illuminated the library in violent white, followed by a concussive shockwave that shattered the remaining windows and sent Vivienne’s operatives stumbling backward with agonizing cries.
Marcus fired three suppressed rounds in rapid succession, dropping the two nearest mercenaries before they could raise their weapons. He grabbed my jacket, dragging me through the concealed servant’s staircase behind the bookshelves—a passage we had used as children to sneak into the kitchen.
Gunfire ripped through the mahogany paneling above us, wood splinters flying like shrapnel.
"We have to move!" Marcus yelled over the chaos, blood trickling from his reopened shoulder wound. "She’s calling in air support!"
We tumbled out into the cold cellar and burst through the bulkhead into the pouring rain. Behind us, the mansion was lit by tactical searchlights as reinforcements poured onto the grounds.
We scrambled down the ravine into the dense woods. Marcus tossed me a disposable satellite phone.
"Call her!" Marcus shouted, returning fire behind us to suppress the advancing squad. "Warn Lauren now!"
My fingers trembling violently against the mud-slicked keypad, I punched in the emergency number encoded in Lauren’s cipher.
The line rang once. Twice.
"Clara?" Lauren's voice answered, breathless, accompanied by the muffled sound of distant gunfire on her end.
"Lauren! They have your location! It’s Vivienne Dubois—she found your safehouse!"
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"I know," Lauren replied, her voice eerily calm beneath the storm. "I let them find it, Clara. Because I wasn't waiting in that cabin to die. I was waiting for them to commit their entire strike team so the main vault in Boston would be left completely undefended."
***