Chapter 15 - The Siege of Ridgeview
While I fought my way into the casino basement, a secondary threat was unfolding miles away at our mountain sanctuary.
Back at the house, my father stood by Noah’s bedroom door, holding a heavy iron fireplace poker. The perimeter alarms were blaring red. Victor’s secondary team—a mercenary squad sent to eliminate my family as a contingency plan—had broken through the rear security gates.
"Dad, I'm scared," Noah whimpered from under his bed, clutching his T-Rex plushie.
"Stay quiet, my brave boy," my mother whispered, pulling the heavy oak wardrobe across the bedroom door to barricade it. "Your mother gave us this home. We are not letting anyone take it away."
Outside the bedroom, heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs.
"We know you're in there, old man!" a mercenary yelled, kicking the wooden barricade. "Hand over the kid!"
My father, a former veteran who had spent five years watching his daughter suffer in silence, felt a cold fire ignite in his chest. "Not today!"
Using the house's master smart-control panel, my mother triggered the emergency defense protocol I had installed weeks earlier. High-intensity strobe lights flashed throughout the hallway, accompanied by deafening 120-decibel alarms.
Disoriented and blinded, the mercenaries stumbled backward. My father surged forward, using his combat training to disarm the lead mercenary, slamming the heavy iron poker into his knees and knocking him down the grand staircase.
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Downstairs, the roar of engine exhaust filled the driveway. Two local sheriff cruisers, alerted by my automatic silent distress beacon, screeched to a halt outside, weapons drawn.
Within minutes, the mercenaries at the house were cuffed and kneeling in the snow. My father held my mother and Noah close as the flashing red and blue lights illuminated the living room. The sanctuary had held.
