Chapter 10 - Blood on the Hearth
Inside the grand cedar living room of the Port Angeles estate, the air was thick with the acrid stench of cordite, shattered timber, and burning plaster. Three mercenaries in grey urban camouflage had breached the shattered conservatory, their laser sights sweeping across the room toward the stone fireplace.
Arthur Vance knelt behind the heavy oak mantel, firing a semi-automatic shotgun with steady, disciplined precision. The heavy blast tore through the lead operative’s tactical vest, throwing him backward into the shattered glass table and forcing the other two intruders to dive behind the leather sofas.
Upstairs in the master safe room, Clara sat on the reinforced floor, her hands holding a compact pistol steady across her knees. She felt the heavy, protective surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins as she whispered soothing words to the child growing inside her womb.
“Hold on, my little love,” Clara murmured in the dark, her ice-blue eyes fixed on the heavy steel door. “Mommy is right here, and no one will ever harm you.”
Downstairs, a concussive flashbang grenade rolled across the hardwood floor, detonating with a blinding white flash that disoriented Arthur and sent him sprawling across the stones. The mercenary commander, a towering Russian operative named Volkov, stepped out from the smoke with a cruel, cold sneer, aiming his sidearm directly at Arthur’s head.
“Where is the girl, old man?” Volkov growled, his finger tightening on the trigger. “Tell me where the safe room override is, or I’ll scatter your brains across this fireplace.”
Before Volkov could pull the trigger, the massive stained-glass skylight above the two-story living room shattered inward with an explosive roar. Dominic Vance dropped through the ceiling like a falling meteor, landing directly on top of two mercenaries with bone-crushing force that caved in their chest plates.
Dominic moved with blinding, lethal ferocity, driving a combat blade through the throat of the third operative before the man could raise his assault rifle. He spun in a low, sweeping arc, disarming the next mercenary and firing three rapid rounds into two hostiles flanking the dining room archway.
Volkov turned in shock, raising his heavy pistol, but Dominic closed the distance in a fraction of a second. Dominic drove a devastating elbow strike into Volkov’s jaw, shattering his teeth and sending the towering commander crashing into the stone hearth.
Dominic grabbed Volkov by his tactical collar, lifting the two-hundred-and-forty-pound killer off the floor with brute, primal rage. He slammed him repeatedly into the stone mantle until the mercenary went completely limp, dropping the unconscious body onto the floor like a sack of rubbish.
The living room fell into dead silence, broken only by the sound of rain pouring through the shattered skylight and Dominic’s ragged, heavy breathing. Dominic turned around, rushing over to Arthur and lifting his wounded uncle gently from the debris.
May you like
“Arthur, are you hit?” Dominic asked, his hands covered in blood as he checked the older man for bullet wounds. “Where is she? Where is Clara?”
Arthur coughed, spitting out a mouthful of dust, and pointed a trembling hand toward the second-floor stairwell. “She’s in the vault, Dominic… go to your wife… she’s safe.”
