Chapter 6 - The Glass Storm
Viktor Vance’s eyes widened in sudden, absolute terror. "Kill her!"
Before the guards could pull their triggers, Vivien slammed her thumb down on the red toggle.
A series of sharp, deafening detonations shattered the iron support beams of the conservatory roof. High-grade thermite charges ignited along the upper rim of the dome, raining a blinding curtain of molten white fire and white-hot sparks down onto the iron pathways.
The sudden, blinding flash blinded the compromised guards.
Dominic didn't hesitate. Trained by years of instinct, he dropped low the instant Vivien moved her hand. He fired three rapid shots into the chest of the guard directly in front of him, grabbing the man’s falling rifle before his body hit the brick floor.
Vivien moved like a shadow through the pyrotechnic storm. She dove sideways, drawing two hidden blades from her boots, and slammed into the second guard before he could clear his sights. The blade swept across his throat with terrifying, surgical precision, dropping him into a bed of ferns.
Viktor Vance scrambled backward, shielding his face from the shower of burning glass as the upper dome began to cave inward under the extreme heat. "Elena! Get the drive!"
Elena sprinted toward the pit, but Dominic rolled across the flagstones, bringing his rifle up. He fired a burst that tore through the ground inches from her feet, forcing her to dive behind a heavy stone fountain for cover.
"Vivien! The exit!" Dominic yelled over the roaring fire and shattering glass.
"Not without you!" she shouted back, standing over the third fallen guard, her dark dress splashed with rainwater and sparks.
The entire glass structure was collapsing. Massive panes of heavy reinforced glass rained down like guillotines, smashing into the brick pathways and crushing the tropical plants beneath tons of twisted iron.
Dominic grabbed Vivien by the waist, pulling her beneath the shelter of the reinforced concrete archway near the south door just as a thirty-foot iron beam crashed down directly over the open pit, burying the steel trunk under five tons of flaming debris.
Elena screamed in rage from the far side of the fountain as the entrance to the vault was permanently sealed beneath the collapsing superstructure. Viktor grabbed his sister by her apron straps, dragging her back through the shattered rear windows into the dark storm outside.
Dominic and Vivien burst through the south exit of the conservatory, tumbling out onto the rain-slicked lawn of the east courtyard.
Behind them, the massive glass dome collapsed inward with a sound like a freight train crashing, sending a geyser of sparks, smoke, and shattered glass three hundred feet into the night sky.
Dominic landed on his back on the wet grass, chest heaving, his hands slick with mud and gunpowder.
Vivien landed beside him. Her hair was torn free from its elegant bun, hanging in damp strands around her face, her coat singed at the cuffs, a thin cut bleeding across her left collarbone.
She sat up, breathing heavily, and looked down at him.
In the flickering orange light of the burning conservatory, she didn't look like a librarian. She didn't look like a gentle society hostess.
She looked like a warrior who had survived hell.
Dominic slowly sat up, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at her through the falling rain.
"You blew up a five-million-dollar conservatory," Dominic said, his voice raspy.
"It was ugly anyway," Vivien replied, a breathless, genuine laugh escaping her lips.
Dominic stared at her for a long, silent moment. Then he looked back toward the burning ruins of the house he had lived in for seven years.
"They're heading for the harbor," Dominic said, his tone shifting instantly into tactical focus. "Viktor and Elena. They know they can't get the drive now, so they'll try to reach their offshore extraction boat at Pier 42 before my perimeter teams close the city."
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Vivien reached down, pulled a fresh magazine from her inner pocket, and slapped it into her 9mm pistol with a sharp, professional click.
"Then we'd better get to the garage," Vivien said, looking at him with eyes that were entirely clear, entirely fierce, and undeniably tied to his. "Because nobody attacks my husband's house and lives to talk about it."
