Chapter 6 - NIGHT OF THE MERCENARIES
I sprinted down the darkened marble staircase, the heavy tactical flashlight in my left hand and a steel hearth poker in my right. I wasn't a soldier, but I knew every inch of this 20,000-square-foot mansion. I had designed the security layouts myself.
Down in the main foyer, the grand glass doors had been shattered. Rain poured into the entrance hall, soaking the Persian rugs. Two security guards lay unconscious near the fountain, their tasered bodies twitching slightly.
"Spread out," a deep, harsh voice ordered from the shadows of the dining room. "The boy is in the master wing or the panic room. Command wants Subject Eight alive and intact. Anyone else is secondary. Use non-lethal force on Vale if possible, but secure the asset."
They were professional, quiet, and fast. Mercenaries hired by Aegis to do what Sheriff Miller couldn't do legally.
I backed into the kitchen pantry, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I reached up and pulled the emergency fire-suppression lever mounted on the wall.
Instantly, industrial alarm strobes flashed, and thousands of gallons of high-pressure water and chemical foam burst from the ceiling sprinklers across the entire ground floor.
The mercenaries cursed as the blinding white foam flooded the hallway, obscuring their vision and shorting out their night-vision goggles.
"Clear your visors!" their leader shouted.
I didn't give them time. I lunged out of the pantry, swinging the heavy iron hearth poker with all the rage of a desperate father. The iron struck the lead mercenary across his helmet, sending him crashing into a glass display cabinet.
Before the second man could raise his weapon, Marcus—my head of security, bleeding from a cut on his forehead—tackled him from behind, slamming his head into the granite kitchen island.
"Boss!" Marcus panted, wiping rain and blood from his eyes. "There's six of them inside, and four more outside near the helipad! They're jamming all cellular signals! We can't call the police!"
"We don't need the police," I gritted out, grabbing a discarded taser from the fallen mercenary. "Where is their transport?"
"They brought a armored van through the rear service gate," Marcus said. "They came to kidnap him and erase the evidence."
Suddenly, a loud explosion rocked the upper floor. Heavy dust rained down from the ceiling.
"The library!" I screamed.
I turned and sprinted back up the stairs, ignoring the burning pain in my lungs. The mercenaries had used a breacher charge on the reinforced library door.
When I reached the top floor, the heavy oak doors of the library were hanging off their hinges, smoking from the blast. Inside, Dr. Victor Sterling himself stood over Claire, who was lying on the floor, holding her bruised arm. Two armed men were dragging Noah out of the hidden panic room.
Leo and Lila were screaming, hitting the mercenaries' tactical boots with their crutches, but the heavy men casually shoved the children aside.
"Release him!" I roared, raising the taser.
Sterling turned, pulling a sleek silver syringe from his coat pocket. "Stand down, Vale! You're out of your depth! This boy contains genetic sequences worth tens of billions of dollars! Do you really think your little fortune can stop a global pharmaceutical syndicate?"
Noah was thrashing in the mercenary's grip, his face pale, his purple-veined legs dragging behind him. "Mr. Vale! Don't let them take me back! Please!"
"I promised you, Noah!" I shouted, aiming the taser at the man holding him. "I said you were staying here!"
"Shoot him, and the boy dies in the crossfire," Sterling sneered, stepping between me and the mercenary. He lowered the syringe toward Noah's neck. "This sedative will put him under for forty-eight hours. By the time he wakes up, he'll be in an offshore lab in international waters, and your legal team won't even know which country to file papers in."
Noah looked at Sterling's approaching hand. His eyes suddenly filled with an eerie, desperate light.
"No..." Noah whispered. "No more boxes."
Before Sterling could press the needle into the boy's neck, Noah reached out with both hands and grabbed Sterling’s bare wrist.
Sterling laughed mockingly. "You think your little trick works on me, boy? I'm not sick! I don't have broken nerves for you to fix!"
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"You don't have broken nerves..." Noah whispered, his voice sounding chillingly hollow, echoing with a strange dual resonance. "But you have a very sick heart."
Sterling’s laughter abruptly stopped. His eyes went wide with sheer terror as the color rapidly drained from his face.
