Chapter 4 - The Ambush at the East Wing
The grand staircase was a warzone of smoke, flying plaster, and shattering glass.
Narin kept low to the marble steps, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She ducked beneath a burst of automatic fire that pulverized a priceless oil painting on the landing wall above her.
Three of Declan’s house guards were already down, bleeding out near the entrance of the grand ballroom. The Rossy cartel had sent a full strike force—at least twelve heavy tacticians equipped with suppressed rifles and smoke grenades.
Narin reached the second-floor corridor, breathless and sweating, her palms slick with cold terror.
Down at the far end of the hallway, two masked gunmen were kicking in the heavy double oak doors of Declan’s private study.
“Check the interior!” one gunman barked in a thick Eastern European accent. “The cripple can’t move! Finish him and grab the ledger from the safe!”
Inside the study, Declan sat behind his heavy desk. He had pulled a heavy silver .45 caliber handgun from his top drawer, his face cold, pale, and utterly devoid of fear. He raised the weapon with steady hands, firing three rapid shots through the splintering doors.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
One of the gunmen collapsed into the hallway, clutching his neck. But the second gunman hurled a flashing tear-gas canister straight through the shattered glass panel of the door.
Dense, burning white smoke instantly filled the study.
From her spot behind an antique display case, Narin saw Declan coughing violently, his eyes tearing up as the choking gas engulfed his chair. He fired two wild shots into the smoke, but his posture slumped as his lungs seized up from the toxic fumes.
The remaining gunman chuckled darkly, stepping over his fallen comrade, raising his rifle toward the smoke-filled doorway.
“End of the line, Don Graham,” the assassin sneered, reaching for his trigger.
Narin didn't think. She didn't calculate the odds or consider her own survival.
She grabbed a heavy, two-foot-tall bronze statue of a roaring lion from the display pediment beside her, swung it back with both hands, and sprinted down the hallway.
With a raw, desperate scream, she slammed the solid bronze base directly into the back of the assassin’s head!
CRACK!
The hit was brutal. The gunman dropped his rifle, staggered forward like a drunkard, and collapsed unconscious face-first onto the wooden floor.
Narin dropped the bronze lion, coughing as the thick white tear gas billowed out into the hall. She burst through the ruined study doors, tearing off her apron and wrapping it over her nose and mouth.
“Declan!” she gasped, her eyes stinging fiercely.
Through the dense fog, she found him slumped sideways in his motorized wheelchair, his eyes watering, coughing violently as he tried to steer the control stick with numb fingers.
“Narin...?” he rasped, his voice filled with genuine shock. “What... what are you doing here?! I told you to stay down!”
“We have to move!” Narin yelled, grabbing the rubber handles of his wheelchair and violently turning it around.
“The main elevator is disabled!” Declan coughed out, pointing toward the corner. “The emergency stairs are compromised—they’ll surround us in seconds!”
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“There’s the service freight lift behind the wine pantry!” Narin said, remembering the estate layout from her daily cleaning rounds. “It leads directly to the underground garage!”
She didn't wait for his permission. Narin dug her shoes into the floor and pushed the heavy, three-hundred-pound motorized chair with all the strength in her body, plunging into the dark, smoke-filled service corridor just as more boots thundered up the main staircase behind them.
