A 4-Year-Old Girl Fell From a Million-Dollar Mansion’s Balcony Into an Infinity Pool! After the Servant Saved Her, She Kept Pointing Upstairs… But When He Saw Who Was Closing the Curtains, His Blood Ran Cold! / Chapter 35 / 60

Chapter 35 - The Hunting Horn

The beam of a high-powered spotlight swept across the exterior wall of the ore-crusher, splashing harsh white glare through the gaps in the timbers. Arthur’s voice boomed through an external loudspeaker mounted on his lead SUV, amplified and distorted by the frozen valley walls.

"Gabriel! I know you survived the crash! A stray dog like you does not die easily!" Arthur’s voice was dripping with venom, yet trembling with unchecked manic rage. "Bring my granddaughter out! I will give you ten million dollars, wired to any offshore account of your choosing. Walk away a rich man, or feed the wolves before sunrise!"

Inside the shadowy shed, Nora looked at Gabriel. She didn't cry. Her small hand reached out and touched the fresh blood seeping through Gabriel’s jacket. "Gabriel is not for sale," she whispered firmly.

Gabriel looked down at her and offered a rare, razor-sharp smile. "Never, little bird."

He turned to Sarah. "They have thermal scopes. The heat signature of this burning helicopter will blind their sensors for another four minutes. We split up. You take Nora through the old mining tunnel beneath the rail yard. It leads directly to the international boundary line."

Sarah grabbed Gabriel’s arm. "You can't hold off twenty private contractors alone, Gabriel. You’re running on pure adrenaline and blood loss."

"I don't need to defeat twenty men in a gunfight," Gabriel said, cocking the shotgun with a clean, mechanical snap. "I just need to take their commander off the board."

Gabriel slipped out through a rusted side hatch into the frozen shadows of the industrial rail yard. The terrain was a labyrinth of half-buried coal cars, overturned cranes, and towering piles of black slag covered in slick ice.

Arthur’s men moved in disciplined fireteams of four, wearing heavy body armor and night-vision goggles, their suppressed assault rifles raised.

"Spread out! Search every container!" Arthur shouted from behind the armored glass of his SUV. "If you see the servant, blow his legs off! Do not harm the girl’s eyes or face—I need the retinas intact!"

Gabriel melted into the darkness between two rusted coal cars. He smelled the cloying scent of weapon oil and wet wool before he saw them. Two mercenaries rounded the corner of a flatbed car, their rifle-mounted lights cutting through the falling flakes.

Gabriel waited until their boots hit the frozen steel grating.

He lunged like a shadow born from the ice. His combat blade flashed in the darkness, sliding seamlessly under the first guard’s chin strap into the jugular. Before the second guard could raise his weapon, Gabriel grabbed the muzzle of the rifle, forcing it upward as a burst of suppressed rounds chewed through the empty air, then slammed his tactical shotgun under the man’s jaw.

The guard collapsed into the snow without a sound.

Gabriel stripped the dead men of their flash-bangs and fragmentation grenades, slinging an automatic rifle over his shoulder. He checked the radio earpiece taken from the contractor’s collar.