Chapter 5 - The Siege of Cedar Ridge
My heart plummeted into my throat. "What about the kids?!" I shouted into the comms, turning toward the door.
"My team on the ridge is engaging!" Trent shouted over the radio, the background noise filled with static and heavy engine roars. "Two vehicles just rammed the front gate at Blackwood! They knew the camera blind spots, Mason! They’re trying to force entry through the back porch!"
"I'm on my way," I yelled.
I looked at Victoria. "Stay with Mateo. Keep state troopers in this room. Don't leave his side."
Without waiting for her reply, I sprinted out of the hospital room, taking the stairs three at a time down to the parking garage.
The drive from Knoxville to Blackwood Ridge usually took forty-five minutes. I made it in twenty-six, my truck tearing through the dark mountain twisties at ninety miles an hour, tires screaming against the cold asphalt.
As I rounded the final bend leading up to Blackwood Ridge, smoke was rising through the tree canopy.
I smashed through the shattered wooden gate of my own driveway. A black SUV was parked sideways across the lawn, its headlights shining directly into the front windows of the cabin. Two men were hammering on the reinforced oak front door with iron bars, while a third was trying to kick through the side patio glass.
Trent’s security guard was on the ground near the garage, bleeding from a head wound but still fighting, holding off one of Dalton's goons with his bare hands.
A deep, visceral fury took over me. I didn't hit the brakes.
I slammed my truck directly into the side of the black SUV, the violent impact rending metal and throwing the vehicle ten feet across the gravel driveway into a pine tree.
The sound echoed through the valley like a cannon shot.
I threw my door open, stepping out into the glare of the headlights with an iron tire iron in my hand.
"Get away from that door!" I roared.
The two men by the front porch turned, startled. One of them pulled a short brass knuckle set from his pocket, while the other drew a hunting knife.
"Calloway!" the man with the knife snarled. "Dalton said if you got in the way tonight, you don't walk off this ridge!"
I didn't waste time talking. When the man with the knife lunged, I stepped inside his reach, parrying his arm with the tire iron and swinging a heavy left hook straight into his jaw. He dropped like a sack of concrete.
The second man charged, but before he could reach me, the heavy oak front door of the cabin swung open.
Elena stood in the doorway. He wasn't crying. He wasn't hiding.
He was holding my heavy brass fireplace poker with both hands, his knuckles bone-white, his stance firmly planted in the threshold, protecting his little brother and sister who were cowering behind him in the dark hallway.
"Touch him," Elena screamed at the remaining thug, his voice echoing with absolute defiance, "and I'll kill you!"
The remaining thug hesitated, looking at me, looking at his unconscious partner, and then at the fearless twelve-year-old standing in the doorway like a guardian knight.
Far down the mountain, the sound of wailing sirens began to echo through the trees. Trent had alerted the State Highway Patrol before the comms went down.
"It's over," I said, stepping toward the thug, the tire iron raised. "Drop the knife and get on the ground before the state troopers turn this ridge into a crime scene you'll never leave."
The thug spat on the ground, dropped his weapon, and threw his hands into the air as three state trooper cruisers tore around the bend, their red and blue lights flashing wildly against the cedar trees.
I dropped the tire iron and ran up the porch stairs, sweeping Elena, Rosie, and Caleb into a tight, fierce embrace.
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Elena finally broke. The fireplace poker clattered to the wooden deck as the twelve-year-old boy buried his face into my shoulder, weeping uncontrollably as the terror of the night finally washed away.
"You're safe," I whispered, holding all three of them tight against my chest under the flashing red lights. "I'm not letting anyone take you. Not tonight. Not ever."
