Chapter 13 - The Intrusion at the Bluffs

"Elena! Lock the panic vault! Now!" Silas roared over the headset, his voice cracking with sheer panic for the first time in his life.

I tore off the headset, grabbed the tactical shotgun Silas had taught me to operate, and sprinted from the gatehouse across the rain-slicked courtyard toward the main house. Through the mist, the terrifying sound of shattering plate glass exploded from the sunroom where Clara was supposed to be doing her homework.

Barnaby’s ferocious, guttural barking reverberated through the grand stone hallways, followed by the muffled thud of a heavy boot and a canine yelp of pain.

"Barnaby!" I screamed, adrenaline flooding my veins with molten fire. I slammed open the French doors to the drawing room.

Two heavily armed operatives dressed in tactical urban camo were dragging a struggling Clara toward the broken balcony doors. A third man, tall, elegant, wearing an immaculate cashmere overcoat stained with rain, stood over Barnaby, holding a taser prod. The retriever was snarling, bleeding from his shoulder, but still snapping furiously at the intruder's calves.

"Let go of my daughter!" I raised the 12-gauge shotgun directly at the chest of the man in the cashmere coat.

The man turned slowly. He had silver hair slicked back against his scalp and a thin, cruel scar slicing through his left eyebrow. "Elena, isn’t it? The little waitress who tamed the Butcher of Berth Nine," he purred, raising his gloved hands mockingly. "Lower the iron, girl. You pull that trigger, and my men snap the girl's neck before you can rack the slide."

Clara looked at me, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, but she didn't cry out. She remembered what her father had taught her. She bit down hard on the forearm of the brute holding her. The man cursed, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second.

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That split-second was all I needed. I didn't shoot the man in the coat; I fired straight into the polished marble floor between the kidnappers’ feet. The blast pulverized the stone, sending shrapnel and heavy lead flying upward. The brute dropped Clara with a howl of agony as marble shards shredded his shins.

"Run to the library, Clara!" I screamed, racking the slide with a thunderous clatter.