Chapter 6 - The Traitor Within
A month passed in the Berkshires.
My mother’s health improved beyond our wildest dreams. With the clean mountain air, organic food prepared by a private chef, and daily physical therapy, she was soon able to walk around the gardens without her oxygen machine, her laughter once again filling the halls of the estate.
Liam split his time between Boston and Lenox. Whenever he was at the estate, he spent his evenings with me. We walked along the forest trails, talked by the fireplace, and played chess in his study. I saw a side of him that the newspapers never wrote about—a man who was incredibly well-read, quiet, and possessed a dry, sharp wit.
I was falling deeply in love with him, and I knew, from the way his eyes followed me whenever I entered a room, that he felt the same.
But the peace was shattered on a cold Tuesday morning.
I was walking down the hallway toward the kitchen to make my mother some tea when I heard raised voices coming from Liam’s private office. The door was slightly ajar.
"How the hell did they get the coordinates, Marcus?!" Liam roared, his voice shaking with a terrifying fury. "This estate is unregistered! Only my inner circle knows we are here!"
"I don't know, boss," his head of security, Marcus, replied, his voice trembling. "Our outer perimeter sensors were tripped ten minutes ago. A convoy of five blacked-out SUVs is heading up the mountain road. They’ve bypassed the local police blockades. It's the Sterlings. Richard Sterling himself is leading them."
My heart stopped. I stood frozen in the hallway, the teacup slipping from my fingers and shattering on the hardwood floor.
The office door flew open. Liam stood there, his face pale but completely composed, his gun already in his hand. When he saw the shattered glass and my terrified face, his expression softened with immediate concern.
"Maya," he said, rushing to my side and grabbing my shoulders. "Listen to me. I need you to take your mother and go to the safe room in the basement immediately. Marcus will guide you. Do not come out until I personally open the door. Do you understand?"
"What about you, Liam?" I cried, grabbing his lapels, my eyes wide with terror. "They're coming for you!"
"I’ve been waiting twenty-five years for this day, Maya," Liam said, his voice dropping to a low, steady whisper. He leaned down, pressing his lips to mine in a brief, desperate, and incredibly passionate kiss. "I'm going to finish this. For my father, for your mother, and for our future."
Before I could say another word, Marcus grabbed my arm, gently but firmly pulling me toward my mother's suite.
We gathered her, her portable oxygen, and rushed down a hidden staircase behind the library, entering a massive, steel-reinforced bunker beneath the estate. The heavy blast doors hissed shut, locking us inside a high-tech room filled with security monitors.
I rushed to the screens, my hands pressing against the cold glass as I watched the cameras outside.
The convoy of five SUVs smashed through the iron gates of the estate, spinning onto the manicured lawn. Dozens of armed men in tactical gear poured out of the vehicles, their weapons pointed at the mansion.
Emerging from the center vehicle was an older man with silver hair and a cruel, aristocratic face. Richard Sterling.
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And walking right beside him, pointing toward the mansion’s side entrance, was someone I recognized.
It was Dr. Aris—the chief of medicine from St. Catherine’s Hospital. The man who had managed my mother’s care in Boston. He was the traitor. He had sold our coordinates to the Sterlings.
