Chapter 10 - THE FINAL RETALIATION
The room went dead silent.
Victor’s hand gripped the edge of the mahogany table so hard the wood groaned under the pressure. “Hijacked? How did they break the police escort?”
“They staged a multi-car pileup on the bridge,” Marcus answered, the sound of blaring police radios audible in the background. “Two state troopers were wounded. Serena is loose, boss. And according to the traffic surveillance feeds, they switched to a stolen dark blue SUV heading north toward the Hudson Valley.”
“She’s coming here,” Lily whispered, the color instantly draining from her face. She pulled Ethan into her arms, holding him against her chest.
“She doesn’t know where this safe house is,” Victor said calmly, trying to reassure her, though his eyes were sharp with calculation. “This property is completely off-grid.”
“You don’t understand, Victor,” Lily said, her voice shaking. “When Serena was going through your desk last month, she took photos of your private architectural blueprints. She bragged to me that she knew every single property you owned, even the ones not listed under Blackwood Enterprises. She called this place ‘The Tomb.’”
Victor’s jaw set into stone. He tapped his comms unit. “Marcus, lock down the access roads within a five-mile radius. Bring the secondary perimeter team to the safe house immediately.”
“We’re twenty minutes out, sir! Move to the panic room!”
Victor cut the call. He turned to Martha. “Martha, take Ethan down to the subterranean vault. Lock the reinforced door from the inside. Do not open it for any reason until you hear my voice giving the clearance code: Phoenix Seven.”
“Understood, Mr. Blackwood,” Martha said without hesitation, taking Ethan gently from Lily’s arms. The older woman moved swiftly toward the hidden elevator panel behind the library bookshelf.
Ethan whimpered, reaching his tiny hand out toward Lily.
“I’ll be right down, baby,” Lily whispered, kissing his forehead before Martha stepped into the elevator and the heavy steel door slid shut with a solid, airtight seal.
Victor walked over to the gun rack hidden behind the wall panel, pulling out a tactical semi-automatic shotgun and checking the chamber. He handed a compact 9mm sidearm to Lily.
“This time, you keep it loaded,” Victor said, his voice deadly serious. “Serena has nothing left to lose. A wounded animal with no future is the most dangerous predator on earth.”
Suddenly, the safe house’s exterior perimeter alarm flashed an amber warning.
The monitors on the wall flickered to life. At the main iron gate of the safe house, a dark blue SUV had violently smashed through the barrier, its front bumper crumpled, smoke pouring from the radiator.
The driver’s side door kicked open.
A man in a bloodied medical orderly uniform fell to the ground, dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Stepping over his body was Serena Vance.
She was wearing blood-splattered orange prison scrubs, her hair wildly matted, her face twisted into an expression of pure, unhinged insanity. In her right hand, she clutched a stolen police-issue pump-action shotgun.
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She looked directly into the high-mounted security camera, baring her teeth in a grotesque, bloodied smile.
“Victor!” her voice screeched through the external audio receiver, crackling with raw, psychotic rage. “Come out and play, darling! If I can’t be the lady of the Blackwood fortune, I’m going to burn your entire world to ash!”
