Chapter 6 - The Siege of Lake Forest
Miller’s betrayal cracked wide open under Evelyn’s precise, ruthless interrogation. Within twenty minutes, we had the full picture: Viktor Rostov wasn't launching a full-scale military assault on the mansion yet. Instead, he had deployed a specialized extraction team led by his top enforcer, a brutal ex-Spetsnaz operative named Gregor, specifically to capture Evelyn and recover the encryption ledger.
“They’re coming through the private service tunnel beneath the lake,” Miller choked out, clutching his bruised ribs. “The entrance is hidden behind the old boathouse. There are six of them, heavily armed with thermal suppression gear and breach charges.”
“Marcus is gone, and half my outer security detail is out of position,” I said, pacing the length of the panic room as I racked the slide of my assault rifle. “We don’t have enough men to hold both the front gates and the service tunnel.”
“Then we don’t hold them,” Evelyn said, tossing Miller’s discarded tactical vest to me. “We funnel them.”
I stopped pacing and looked at her. “Funnel them where?”
“Into the wine cellar,” Evelyn said calmly. “It’s narrow, stone-lined, soundproof, and completely stripped of electronic signals. Thermal optics and night-vision gear are useless down there in total darkness. And in total darkness, my blind daughter has the deadliest advantage in the room.”
A cold shiver ran down my spine. “No. I am not using my twelve-year-old daughter as bait.”
“Dad, stop treating me like glass!” Grace shouted, stepping forward with a ferocity that caught me completely off guard. She ripped open the equipment locker, pulling out a pair of reinforced tactical batons and sliding them into her belt loops. “I’m not hiding in this room while people come to kill us. I trained for this. I can hear them coming before they even draw breath.”
“She’s right, Vincent,” Evelyn said quietly, laying a hand on my arm. “You built this fortress to keep the world out, but the world is already inside. The only way to survive is to stop running and become the storm.”
I looked between Evelyn’s hardened, battle-scarred face and my daughter’s fierce, unyielding expression. The mafia boss in me screamed to lock them both away; the father in me knew they were right.
“Fine,” I growled, pulling an extra submachine gun and strapping ammo magazines across my chest. “We draw them into the cellar. But I take the point.”
We moved with absolute silence through the darkened corridors of the mansion, slipping down the back stairwell while the automated security alarms at the front gate blared to draw Rostov’s divers away from the service tunnel.
The air in the old wine cellar was damp and cold. We positioned ourselves in the deep shadows behind the massive oak racks filled with vintage bottles of Bordeaux and Chianti. I knelt behind a stone pillar with my rifle leveled at the reinforced iron door at the end of the hall. Evelyn stood to my left, while Grace positioned herself silently atop a wooden staging platform near the ceiling rafters, holding a length of reinforced steel wire.
Minutes felt like hours.
Then, the heavy iron door of the cellar clicked.
May you like
Hiss.
A hydraulic seal broke, and the door swung inward.
