Chapter 4 - The Siege of Blackwood
The world descended into chaos in a fraction of a second.
The shockwave threw Mara backward out of her chair. She hit the floor hard, her breath knocked out of her lungs, glass raining down on her silk robe like frozen hail.
Above the roaring wind and the crackle of burning wood came the harsh, rhythmic chatter of automatic gunfire.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
"Down!" Lucian roared.
Before the glass had even finished hitting the rug, Lucian was on top of her. His massive frame covered hers completely, protecting her head and neck with his arms. At the same time, Bishop was on his feet, his deafening, bone-chilling war-bark echoing through the ruined library as he stood over both of them, his dark lips pulled back in pure, murderous rage.
"Julian!" Lucian barked into a small radio comm clipped to his collar. "Report!"
"Breach on the east perimeter!" Julian’s voice cracked through heavy static and the sound of returning fire. "It’s Victor’s men! They brought heavy tactical gear and breaching charges! They’ve cut the main power grid!"
The library lights instantly went out, plunging the room into pitch darkness lit only by the flickering red embers of the fireplace and the muzzle flashes illuminating the rain outside the shattered windows.
"They aren't here to negotiate," Lucian muttered, his voice surprisingly calm despite the storm of lead chewing through the mahogany bookshelves above them. He reached behind his back, unholstering a dark custom SIG Sauer 9mm pistol from his waistband, and handed a secondary weapon—a compact snub-nosed revolver—directly into Mara’s shaking hands.
"Do you know how to use this?" he demanded, looking down into her wide, panicked eyes.
"No!" she screamed over the deafening noise. "I'm a waitress!"
"Point the open end at anyone who isn't me or Bishop, and pull the lever," Lucian commanded flatly. "Hold it with both hands. Don't stop pulling until they stop moving."
He grabbed her arm, pulling her up into a low crouch behind the solid, reinforced oak structure of his executive desk.
Outside the library doors, screaming and heavy boots echoed down the marble hallway. Victor’s mercenaries were inside the house.
"They came for you," Mara gasped, her fingers clutching the cold steel of the revolver so hard her knuckles turned white. "They know I'm here!"
"They don't want you dead, Mara," Lucian said, his eyes scanning the doorway as he checked the clip of his pistol with a practiced click. "They want you alive so they can cut your fingers off until you give them that Cayman password. Which means I am going to kill every single one of them before they touch a hair on your head."
The heavy double doors of the library were suddenly blown off their hinges by a shotgun blast.
Two men in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles burst into the room, their rifle barrels sweeping the dark space.
"Clear!" one screamed.
He didn't finish the word.
Bishop lunged out from behind the desk like an eighty-pound missile of gray muscle and teeth. He hit the first mercenary squarely in the chest, bringing the two-hundred-pound man down to the hardwood floor with a sickening crash. The dog’s jaws clamped onto the man’s throat guard, tearing through Kevlar and flesh with horrifying efficiency.
The second mercenary swung his rifle toward the dog, but Lucian was already standing.
BANG! BANG!
Two crisp, precise gunshots echoed through the dark library. The second mercenary collapsed backward into the hallway, his rifle clattering across the floorboards.
"Movement!" Lucian barked, grabbing Mara by the belt of her robe and hauling her to her feet. "We need to get to the panic room in the basement! Move!"
They sprinted out of the library into the smoke-filled hallway. The grand estate was a warzone. Muzzle flashes lit up the portraits of the Draven ancestors like terrifying strobe lights. Bodyguards in black suits were trading heavy fire with tactical mercenaries near the grand staircase.
Mara’s heart slammed against her ribs. Rain and smoke scorched her lungs. Beside her, Bishop trotted with lethal purpose, his gray coat stained with crimson, his clouded eye reflecting the firelight.
As they reached the top of the basement stairs, a shadow stepped out from behind a marble pillar.
It was Victor Draven.
Lucian’s uncle was sixty years old, with slicked-back silver hair, a tailored pinstripe suit, and a face carved from cold arrogance. He held a silver-plated Colt .45 pointed directly at Lucian’s chest. Behind him stood three heavily armed men with submachine guns.
"End of the line, nephew," Victor said, his voice dripping with triumphant disdain over the noise of the battle. "I told your father that relying on loyalty was a mental illness. You should have killed this girl the second she walked into your restaurant."
Lucian stopped, placing himself firmly in front of Mara, his gun pointed straight at his uncle’s eyes.
"You burned a twenty-four-year-old girl alive in her house, Victor," Lucian said, his voice dropping into a deadly, horrifying register. "You sold this family to the Russians. You have five seconds to drop that weapon before I paint this hallway with your brains."
Victor laughed—a dry, raspy sound. "Look around you, boy! My men control the perimeter! The police are paid to ignore the sirens for another twenty minutes! Hand over the girl and the password, and I might let you live in a wheelchair!"
Victor raised his gun to aim at Lucian’s head.
He never got the chance to pull the trigger.
Mara didn't think. She didn't hesitate.
Remembering the snub-nosed revolver in her hands, she stepped out from behind Lucian, raised both hands, pointed the gun directly at the heavy crystal chandelier hanging directly above Victor’s head, and pulled the trigger.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The heavy iron chain holding the three-hundred-pound crystal chandelier snapped under the impact of the lead rounds.
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The massive fixture crashed down like a falling star, hitting Victor and his three bodyguards with a deafening roar of shattering glass, breaking iron, and agonized screams.
Lucian didn't waste a single millisecond. He grabbed Mara around the waist, shoved her through the heavy iron door of the basement security bunker, and slammed the three-inch steel door shut, locking the triple bolts into place just as a hail of bullets impacted the outer frame.
