Chapter 7 - The Administrative Wing
They moved through the mansion like shadows, taking the servant stairwells that Claire knew by heart.
Outside, the gunbattle raged on the front lawns as Mason’s loyal perimeter guards fought off the remaining Moretti vehicles. But inside the residential wings, the air was thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder.
They reached the second-floor administrative corridor.
Claire rushed into her office, dropping to her knees behind her desk. She pulled open the lower maintenance hatch, exposing the manual breaker switches that controlled the estate’s roof systems.
"Three minutes," Claire said, her fingers flying across the switches, bypassing the fried digital security protocols. "I just need three minutes to force a system reboot."
Mason stood at the office doorway, his body shielding her from the hall, his gun raised as he monitored the stairwell entrance.
"You were right, you know," Mason said quietly over the hum of the resetting servers.
Claire looked up from the wiring panel, sweat glistening on her forehead. "Right about what?"
"When you said I was worried about you tonight," Mason said, his eyes scanning the dark hallway. "I was terrified, Claire. In my entire life, I’ve never been afraid of anything. Not my father, not the police, not rival families. But when you didn't answer your phone at midnight... I felt like the ground was falling out from under me."
Claire’s hands froze on the breaker wires. She looked at his back—broad, unyielding, a human shield standing between her and a house full of killers.
"Mason..." she whispered.
"If we get through tonight," Mason said, turning his head slightly to look at her over his shoulder, "I'm not letting you go back to being just my housekeeper. You’re going to sit beside me at the head of the table. Where you belong."
A soft green light blinked on the control panel.
ROOF HELIPAD OVERRIDE COMPLETE: SYSTEM LOCKED.
"Done!" Claire called out, standing up. "The fuel pumps are dead. He can't start the chopper!"
Before Mason could answer, a heavy burst of automatic gunfire tore through the drywall behind him.
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Mason spun around, returning fire down the corridor as two mercenaries fell back toward the staircase.
"Go up the secondary stairs to the roof!" Mason yelled, grabbing Claire’s hand as they burst out of the office. "We finish this now!"
