Thee wedding cake hit my face so hard that the entire reception went silent

The roar of powerful V8 engines echoed across the gravel courtyard below. The sirens we had heard earlier weren't law enforcement; they were the audio dispersers of an elite private paramilitary force coming to sanitize the entire estate.

"They're going to level the house," Sarah said, clutching the red ledger against her chest like a shield. "They don't care about Arthur. They don't care about any of us. If this ledger burns, the board remains untouchable."

Arthur Vance's smug expression vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a gray, sickly pallor. "What? No... my security chief wouldn't—"

"Your security chief works for the board, Arthur," Julian said coldly, dragging Vance out of the chair by his collar. "You're a liability now, just like we are. You failed to retrieve the ledger quietly. In two minutes, this room will be hit with enough incendiary ordnance to make sure not even dental records survive."

"Where do we go?" I asked, looking around the library. The main stairs were blocked, the terrace was exposed, and the carriage house was a kill zone.

"The roof," Julian said instantly. "The widow's walk on the third floor connects to the old fire escape on the eastern tower. From there, we drop into the granite quarry."

"We can't outrun armored SUVs on foot in a quarry!" I countered.

"We're not running on foot," Julian replied, pulling a heavy set of keys from the fallen guard's tactical belt. "The private helicopter at the airfield was a decoy. The Vance family always kept an executive transport on the helipad above the quarry pump house. If we reach that pad before they secure the perimeter, we can fly straight to the federal courthouse in Philadelphia."

"Move!" I barked, shoving Vance ahead of us into the narrow service corridor that led to the upper levels.

We surged up the narrow spiral stairs of the servants' quarters, our boots pounding against the ancient oak steps. Below us, the sound of the front doors being breached with hydraulic rams tore through the manor—a thunderous crash of splintering mahogany, followed by the rapid, synchronized barking of commands from dozens of heavily armed men.

"Clear the ground floor! Check the hearth! Search for the red ledger!" a voice shouted from the main hall.

We burst onto the third-floor landing just as the first flash-bang exploded in the library below, rattling the floorboards beneath our feet.

The cold morning air hit us like a slap as Julian kicked open the heavy iron door leading onto the widow's walk—a narrow railed walkway that encircled the central slate roof of High Ridge.

From here, sixty feet above the ground, the full scale of the siege was terrifyingly visible.

Eight tactical vehicles were arrayed across the courtyard. Men in full tactical gear were moving in fire teams, deploying heavy thermite charges around the foundation of the house. They weren't just searching for us; they were preparing to collapse the entire east wing into the cellar.

"Look!" Sarah yelled, pointing past the eastern turrets toward the quarry basin three hundred yards away.

Sitting on a circular concrete platform above the old stone pump house was an unmarked, twin-turbine helicopter, its auxiliary power unit already whining as it warmed up. Standing beside the boarding stairs was a single pilot in flight gear, checking his pre-flight manifest.

"We have to cross the slate roof to reach the tower ladder," Julian said, checking the magazine of his weapon. "Clara, you and Sarah go first. I'll drag Vance. If he tries to slow us down, I'll drop him off the parapet."

"Don't shoot!" Vance whined, shivering violently in his ruined wool coat. "I'll pay you whatever you want! Five million! Ten million!"

"Shut up, Arthur," I hissed, pushing him onto the narrow catwalk.

We moved in a crouch across the slick slate tiles. The dawn mist was thick, slicking the seventy-degree slope of the roof. Below us, a fifty-foot sheer drop ended on the jagged flagstones of the terrace.

Halfway across the roof ridge, a voice crackled through a megaphone from the courtyard below:

*"Target spotted on the eastern roofline! Do not let them reach the quarry! Free fire authorized!"*