Chapter 6 - The Midnight Siege
Damon reacted with the speed of an apex predator.
In a fraction of a second, he spun Selena behind him, shoving her down toward the floor beneath the heavy oak dining table.
“Stay down!” he hissed.
He didn't reach for the Kimber on the table. He grabbed the suppressed short-barreled shotgun leaning against the jamb.
The heavy wooden front door blew inward with a deafening *CRACK* as a breaching charge obliterated the hinges. Splinters of pine and smoking plaster exploded through the cabin.
Through the smoke, two silhouettes clad in matte-black tactical gear and night-vision goggles burst into the room, carbines raised.
They never fired a shot.
Damon fired twice from the hip. The twin blasts of heavy buckshot slammed the first operator backward through the shattered doorway like a ragdoll. The second man swung his weapon, but Damon was already upon him. Damon knocked the barrel aside with the barrel of his shotgun and drove a brutal elbow straight into the operator’s visor, shattering the polymer lens and driving the shards into his face.
The man collapsed with a gurgling groan.
Outside, the crack of Marcus’s long rifle roared through the pines—one, two, three deliberate shots.
*“Boss!”* Marcus’s voice bellowed through the radio earbud resting on the table. *“They bypassed the outer ridge! They used thermal drones to pinpoint the chimney! We have at least eight more advancing from the east flank!”*
From the bedroom, a shrill, terrified scream pierced the smoke.
“Mommy! Damon!”
Ruby.
Selena scrambled out from under the table on her knees, terror wild in her eyes. “Ruby!”
“Get her into the root cellar!” Damon barked, racking another shell into the shotgun. “There’s a reinforced iron grate beneath the floor rug in the pantry! Move!”
Selena bolted toward the bedroom like a lioness, ignoring the flying glass and smoking debris.
Damon stepped to the shattered front window, peering through the thermal sights of an AR-15 resting on the sill. Through the pine trees, four distinct heat signatures were advancing in a staggered wedge formation, laying down suppressing fire. High-caliber rounds ripped through the cabin’s logs, spitting splinters of wood like shrapnel.
Damon squeezed the trigger—*pop-pop-pop*.
One heat signature crumpled. The remaining three dove behind granite boulders.
In the back room, Selena emerged, carrying Ruby tightly against her chest. Ruby was sobbing hysterically, burying her face into Selena’s sweater, her arms locked around her mother’s neck. In her fist, she still stubbornly clutched Barnaby the rabbit.
Damon crossed the room in two strides, ushering them toward the pantry. “In! Down the ladder!”
He threw back the braided rug and wrenched open the heavy iron hatch.
“Damon, come with us!” Selena pleaded, her eyes wide with panic as another burst of automatic fire chewed through the kitchen cupboards above their heads.
“I have to cover Marcus!” Damon yelled over the din. “If he falls, they surround the cabin and drop thermite through the floorboards! Go! Lock it from the underside!”
Selena looked at him, tears cutting through the soot on her cheeks. “You promised, Damon! You promised you’d bring us back!”
“I will,” Damon said. He caught the back of her head, pulled her to him, and kissed her hard, tasting the salt of her tears. “I will always come back for you. Now protect our daughter!”
*Our daughter.*
The words hit Selena like a thunderbolt. She nodded, her jaw setting with grim, terrifying resolve. She stepped onto the wooden rungs of the ladder, holding Ruby with one arm, and descended into the dark.
Damon slammed the iron hatch shut.
He turned back to the war.
Marcus burst through the back door, stumbling, his shoulder drenched in dark blood. “The drone took out my hide, boss! They’re closing the perimeter!”
“How did they find this place, Marcus?” Damon demanded, tossing him a fresh magazine for his sidearm. “You swore on your life this cabin didn't exist on any map!”
Marcus slumped against the counter, panting hard, his face gray. “They didn't track the truck, Damon. They didn't track the cabin.”
He reached into his pocket and threw something onto the blood-spattered floorboards.
It was a small, black cylindrical object, no bigger than a pill capsule. It was crushed, but a microscopic red LED was still flickering faintly.
“What is that?” Damon hissed.
“I found it on the porch step,” Marcus wheezed. “Dropped right where the little girl dropped her bag when we arrived.”
Damon’s blood turned to ice.
He looked across the room at the battered pink suitcase lying open near the sofa.
Barnaby’s ear.
The zipper that wouldn't close.
The man who had pinned Selena in the laundry room—he hadn't just asked about schedules. He had gone into the west wing bedrooms *before* Selena got there.
He hadn't planted the bomb on the Suburban to kill Damon.
The Suburban was a decoy.
He had planted the tracker inside Ruby’s stuffed rabbit.
They had let the little girl run straight to Damon, knowing that Damon Mercer, in all his legendary ruthlessness, would sweep the child into his arms and carry her directly to his most secret refuge.
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“They didn't breach the perimeter,” Damon whispered, a realization so cold and terrifying it felt like an iron blade piercing his lungs. “We led them here ourselves.”
***