Chapter 24 - Blood on the Marble
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"I trusted you with my daughter's life, Sarah," I said, my voice dripping with lethal venom from behind my father.
"Nothing personal, Mara," Sarah replied, raising the EMP jammer. "Gabriel Vance doesn't want the baby dead. He just wants her as leverage to force you to sign over Vance Dynamics' defense contracts."
Before Sarah could press the trigger to fried our local security feeds, Marcus moved with blinding speed.
He didn't fire his gun—the noise would startle the baby. Instead, he closed the distance in a fraction of a second, stepping inside her guard and striking her wrist with the butt of his pistol.
The EMP jammer clattered to the floor. Sarah gasped, lunging forward with a hidden combat knife aimed directly at Dad's throat.
Marcus parried the blow seamlessly, sweeping her legs out from under her and pinning her to the cold marble floor with a knee to her back. The knife slid uselessly across the hallway.
"Who else is in the house?" Marcus growled, twisting her arm until she cried out in pain.
"It doesn't matter..." Sarah choked out, coughing up blood. "The signal was already sent... The strike team is... already on the grounds..."
I didn't wait to hear the rest. I pulled out my satellite phone and initiated the automated lockdown protocol I had coded two days after Maya was born.
Heavy iron blast shutters slammed down over every window and doorway in the estate, sealing us inside a steel fortress.
"Dad! The perimeter sensors just went dark!" I called out over the loud clanging of the iron shutters. "They’re using military-grade optical camouflage!"
Marcus dragged Sarah toward the wall, binding her hands with tactical zip-ties. "Mara, take Maya to the sub-basement panic room. Right now!"
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"Not without you!" I protested.
"I'm not leaving you," Marcus said, looking at me with fierce eyes. "I'm going to turn off the lights and hunt them in the dark."
