Chapter 6 - The Breach of River Forest
"Get Lena and her assistant down to the panic room beneath the wine cellar!" Adrien ordered, his voice echoing through the red-lit hallway as gunshots began to rattle in the distance.
"No!" Lena shouted, grabbing Adrien’s forearm. "I'm not leaving you!"
Adrien turned to her, pulling her close by her waist, pressing a hard, fierce kiss against her lips that tasted of salt, iron, and desperation.
"Go with Marcus, Lena," Adrien commanded, staring directly into her eyes. "I built this house to protect my family. I am going to end this tonight."
Before she could object, Marcus grabbed Lena’s arm gently but firmly, pulling her down the grand staircase toward the east wing, where two guards were already escorting a terrified Rosa.
Outside, the night sky was torn apart by flashes of muzzle light and the thunderous roar of automatic gunfire.
Dominic Moretti had brought fifty heavily armed mercenaries, crashing through the iron gates of the estate with a heavy ram-truck. He was desperate. He knew that once Adrien mobilized his full syndicate network in the morning, Dominic’s rebellion would be crushed. He had to kill Adrien tonight.
In the grand foyer, Adrien stood behind the marble balustrade of the second floor balcony, firing down into the courtyard with icy, military precision.
Beside him, his loyal guards held the line, dropping Dominic’s men as they attempted to surge through the shattered front doors.
"ADRIEN!" Dominic’s raspy voice screamed from the courtyard below, amplified by a megaphone. "Surrender the ledger and the girl, and I will let you walk away with your life! Continue this, and I burn the estate to ash!"
Adrien leaned over the balcony, his face lit by the flashes of gunfire below. "You were always a fool, Dominic! There is no ledger! My grandmother left nothing for you because you are a leech who feeds on blood!"
Down in the subterranean wine cellar, fifty feet beneath the ground, Lena and Rosa sat inside the reinforced steel panic room.
The heavy steel door was locked, monitored by internal security screens displaying live footage from the grounds above.
Lena watched the monitor in terror. She saw Adrien fighting on the balcony. She saw smoke filling the grand foyer.
And then she saw something on Camera 4 that made her blood run cold.
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Three of Dominic’s men had breached the rear service entrance near the kitchen. They weren't fighting the guards—they were carrying heavy yellow plastic canisters.
"They're setting accelerant," Lena whispered, horror dawning on her face. "They're going to burn the house down from the inside while Adrien is trapped on the upper floor!"
