Chapter 13 - Unwelcome Guests
I returned to my Norfolk townhouse just past midnight, exhaustion settling deep into the bone and muscle of my shoulders. The persistent, dull ache across my scarred back had flared up from the cold rain, radiating through my ribs like a reminder of old fires.
I pulled into the gravel driveway and cut the engine. The neighborhood was quiet, shrouded in thick coastal fog rolling off the Chesapeake Bay. But as I stepped onto the flagstone path leading to the front porch, a strange prickle of instinct raised the hair on my arms.
The small brass lantern beside the front door was dark. I always left it on when traveling to D.C.
I paused on the bottom step, reaching quietly into my purse to wrap my hand around the handle of my civilian-issue Glock 19. My naval training had been engineering and damage control, but six months of counter-terrorism and shipboard defense tactical courses were permanently burned into my muscle memory.
The front door was ajar by less than a quarter of an inch. The heavy deadbolt strike plate had been cleanly forced, the mahogany jamb splintered with a pry bar.
Moving with absolute silence, I drew the weapon, brought it up in a two-handed combat stance, and stepped across the threshold into the dark foyer.
The living room had been torn apart with methodical, professional precision. The floorboards were pulled up near the fireplace, the bookshelf ransacked with every volume dumped onto the hardwood. My naval service plaques and the framed photograph of the *Vanguard* crew lay face-down on the rug, the glass smashed under heavy boots.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the upstairs hallway.
"Check the floor safe under the floorboards in the master closet!" a low, gruff voice barked upstairs. "The manifest isn't in her desk. If it's not here, Vance must have given it directly to NCIS."
"Keep your voice down," a second voice hissed. "The directive was clean retrieval. No noise. If she walks in, we neutralize and stage it as a home invasion."
My heart hammered against my ribs, but my mind snapped into cold, absolute focus. Neutralize. They weren't common burglars looking for jewelry; these were corporate fixers sent by Apex to retrieve the smoking gun.
I slid along the wall toward the foot of the stairs, utilizing the deep shadows beneath the stairwell.
A heavy set of footsteps began descending the wooden staircase. A tall man dressed in dark tactical clothing, wearing a balaclava and carrying a suppressed submachine gun at the low ready, appeared on the landing.
As his boot hit the third step from the bottom, he caught the faint reflection of the streetlamp on my gun barrel.
"Downstairs—!" he shouted, swinging the muzzle toward me.
I didn't hesitate. I lunged forward from the darkness, driving my left shoulder into his center of mass, knocking him off balance against the banister. His weapon clattered down the wooden steps. He swung a vicious right hook that caught my cheekbone, sending stars across my vision, but I rolled with the impact, driving the heel of my boot straight into his kneecap. A sickening pop cracked through the foyer as his joint buckled.
Before the second man could clear the top landing, the front door behind me burst open with a resounding boom that shook the framing of the house.
"Hands where I can see them, you sons of bitches!"
The roar shook the entire house. Standing framed in the doorway was my father, holding his old 12-gauge Remington shotgun at his shoulder, his eyes blazing with a feral, terrifying rage I had never seen before. Behind him stood Marin, holding a heavy iron tire iron, her face pale but her teeth bared in pure defense of her home.
The second intruder at the top of the stairs froze, staring down both barrels of my father's shotgun and my leveled pistol.
"Drop the weapon and get on your knees," my father commanded, his voice dropping into the terrifying cadence of the veteran master craftsman he was. "You lay one hand on my daughter in this house, and you won't live long enough to hear the sirens."
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The injured man on the floor groaned, clutching his shattered knee, while the man on the stairs slowly dropped his weapon and raised his hands into the air.
Two miles away, the wail of police sirens began cutting through the coastal fog, racing toward our street.
