Chapter 5 - The Glass Room
The heavy steel shutters locked us in, but they also cut off Prescott’s men from the rest of the house.
In the blinding darkness, the red laser sights from three pistols crisscrossed the sunroom, sweeping over the overturned furniture and smashed glass.
"Dominic!" Prescott shouted over the sound of screaming alarms ringing through the mansion. "You can't hide in here! I have the master override code!"
Behind the oak desk, I held Nora against my chest while Grace held Olivia and Sophie. The girls were terrified, but they didn't scream. Fourteen months of living in fear had made them silent survivors.
"Grace," I whispered into her ear, my warm breath brushing against her skin. "Listen to me."
"I'm listening," she whispered back, her voice shaking but resolute.
"Beneath this desk is a floor safe. The code is 0-7-1-2—Isabelle’s birthday. Inside is a secondary security terminal and a submachine gun. Can you open it?"
Grace nodded in the dark. "Yes."
"I'm going to draw their fire toward the north wall," I said, reaching into my ankle holster and pulling out a small, heavy tactical knife I always kept concealed. "When the safe opens, pull the girls inside the wall cavity and hit the green button. It seals the panic room from the inside."
"What about you?" Grace whispered, her hand catching my sleeve in the dark.
I looked at her through the gloom, seeing the genuine panic in her eyes—not for herself, but for me. For the father of the children she had saved.
"I have a fourteen-month debt to collect," I said grimly.
I slipped out from behind the desk like a shadow.
My mansion hadn't just been built for luxury; it had been designed as a fortress by my father thirty years ago. I knew every floorboard, every secret alcove, and every creak in the timber.
I moved along the east wall, sliding behind a tall marble pedestal that held a bronze bust of my grandfather.
A guard swept his flash-light toward the desk. "Movement near the sofa!"
"Take him down!" Prescott ordered.
As the guard stepped past the pedestal, his back turned to me, I moved. I grabbed his head from behind, twisted violently, and snapped his neck before he could make a sound. I caught his falling body, stripped his weapon—a fully loaded MP5 submachine gun—and dropped him to the floor.
Across the room, the low mechanical hum of the floor safe opening echoed softly.
"What was that?!" Prescott barked, sweeping his tactical light toward the desk.
"Hey, Prescott!" I called out from the dark north corner.
Prescott swung his weapon toward my voice and fired three fast rounds.
I rolled behind a heavy leather armchair, raised the stolen MP5, and opened fire. The burst tore through the chest of the second guard, sending him crashing through the interior glass partition into the hallway.
"Fall back to the corridor!" Prescott screamed, realizing he was losing control of the dark room. "Blow the internal doors!"
May you like
"Not today, Prescott," I growled, throwing myself through the smoke as the safe door clicked shut, locking Grace and my daughters inside the reinforced steel panic room.
Now, it was just me and the men who had murdered my wife.
