Chapter 3 - The Breach
"Mr. Rossi!"
Prescott Hale’s voice echoed through the thick oak door, muffled by the heavy seals.
I whipped my head around. "Prescott? Are you out there?"
“Boss, thank God! We heard the alarm trigger in the security sub-basement. The electronic override was locked from an internal terminal, but we bypassed the breakers. Stand back from the door!”
Before I could answer, a series of deafening bangs echoed down the corridor.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound of a tactical battering ram slamming against the reinforced frame.
"Hunter, get into the en-suite bathroom," I ordered, grabbing her by the arm and guiding her toward the back of the nursery. "Lock the door behind you. Do not open it unless you hear my voice."
"What about you?" she asked, her eyes wide with panic.
"I'm going to open this door," I said, pulling the Sig Sauer from my holster and checking the chamber. "And we're going to find out who's really running my house."
With a final, thunderous crash, the entire lock mechanism of the nursery door sheared off its screws. The heavy wood swung inward, crashing against the interior wall.
Through the haze of lingering chemical smoke stood Prescott Hale—my chief of security for twelve years—holding a Remington tactical shotgun, flanked by two armed men in black tactical gear whom I didn't recognize.
For a terrifying second, nobody moved.
Prescott stared at me, his eyes wide, breathing heavily. Then his gaze dropped to the gun in my hand, and finally, slowly, shifted toward the bathroom door where Hunter and Leo were hidden.
"Boss," Prescott said, his voice unusually tight. "You shouldn't have been in here."
The air in the room turned absolute zero.
"Prescott," I said, every muscle in my body locking into lethal tension. "Explain the tactical gear."
Prescott didn't lower his shotgun. Instead, the two men flanking him slowly raised their rifles, their laser sights painting a web of red dots across my chest.
"Dr. Halloran was right," Prescott sighed, shaking his head with a chilling display of false regret. "You were always too sharp for your own good, Lorenzo. If you had just stayed in your study reviewing those shipping manifests like a good CEO, none of this would have been necessary."
"You sold me out," I whispered, the betrayal hitting harder than any bullet ever could. "Twelve years."
"Twelve years of cleaning up your messes while you pretended to be a legitimate businessman," Prescott spat, his mask of loyalty finally slipping away to reveal the cold, calculating mercenary underneath. "The Rossi family empire is rotting from the top down, Lorenzo. The syndicate needed someone stable at the helm. Someone who wouldn't wage a pointless war over a dead wife and a sickly infant."
"Where is Halloran?"
"Downstairs, waiting for the transport," Prescott said, his finger tightening slightly on the trigger guard. "Now, drop the weapon, step away from the bathroom, and let's make this clean. The official report will state that an intruder breached the nursery, and you unfortunately perished while defending your son."
I looked at the red laser dots dancing across my shirt. I looked at the shotgun pointed at my heart.
And then I smiled. A cold, humorless smile that made Prescott's eyes flicker with sudden uncertainty.
"Prescott," I said softly. "Did you ever wonder why I kept a panic room installed behind the master walk-in closet?"
Prescott frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I built this house," I murmured, my thumb flicking the safety switch off with a sharp click. "And every security terminal in this building is wired to a dead-man's switch connected directly to my heartbeat monitor."
Prescott's face drained of color. "You're bluffing."
"Try me," I challenged, raising the Sig Sauer directly toward his chest. "If my heart stops—or if I press this remote transmitter in my pocket—the entire estate's gas lines detonate in three seconds. We all go up together."
It was a total bluff. There was no bomb.
But Prescott didn't know that.
For a fraction of a second, his eyes darted toward the hallway behind him, calculating the odds. That split second of hesitation was all I needed.
I dropped to the floor, rolling hard to the left as Prescott's shotgun roared, blowing a chunk out of the mahogany dresser right where I had been standing.
Bang! Bang!
My Sig Sauer barked twice.
The first round caught the mercenary on the left shoulder, spinning him into the wall. The second round shattered the barrel of Prescott's shotgun, tearing through his glove and sending the weapon clattering across the floor.
Prescott screamed, clutching his bleeding hand, stumbling backward into the hallway.
"Kill him!" Prescott shrieked to the remaining guard, scrambling down the corridor.
The second guard raised his rifle, but before he could acquire his target, the bathroom door flew open.
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Hunter stepped out, holding a heavy porcelain table lamp she had ripped from the nightstand, and brought it down with savage force across the back of the guard's helmet. The man collapsed instantly, unconscious before he hit the floor.
Silence rushed back into the room, broken only by the heavy panting of my own breath.
