Chapter 16 - The Siege of the Glass House
"We have to move. Now!" Daniel pulled Emily up by the arm.
There was no time to mourn Arthur. The tactical sniper fire from the ridge meant they were already surrounded. The private security team Arthur promised was either compromised or dead. Julian Ashford had mobilized an army.
Daniel guided Emily through the darkened house toward the reinforced basement wine cellar—the only room fortified with eighteen-inch concrete walls and an independent steel door.
"Take the weapon," Daniel ordered, pressing the 9mm into Emily’s shaking hands.
"Daniel, no! Don't leave me here alone!" Emily begged, grabbing his lapels, her knuckles bruised and white.
"Emily, listen to me," Daniel took her face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away her tears, forcing her eyes to lock onto his. "They aren't here to negotiate. They are here to wipe our daughter out of existence so a ghost can inherit an empire. If I stay in this room, they’ll breach the door with shaped charges and slaughter us all in a box. I have to draw them into the open."
"Daniel—"
"You shoot anything that walks through that door that isn't me. You protect our baby. Do you hear me? Promise me, Emily!"
Emily swallowed hard, her chest heaving, but the fierce, primal fire of a mother flickered in her eyes. "I promise."
Daniel kissed her fiercely, kissed Lily’s warm forehead, and shoved them inside the reinforced vault. He threw the heavy deadbolt, locking them in absolute darkness.
Turning back toward the corridor, Daniel picked up a heavy tactical shotgun stored in the gun safe beside the pantry. The house groaned under the weight of the coastal storm. The rain was now pounding against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, thunder rattling the structural beams.
May you like
Through the darkness of the great room, three laser sights painted red lines across the fog-shrouded ruins. Three operatives in unmarked combat gear moved silently through the broken patio doors, boots crunching on shattered glass.
Daniel racked the shotgun slide. "Welcome to the Ashford estate," he whispered into the dark.
