Chapter 7 - Shadows in the Dark
Three figures stepped through the threshold of the cellar door, their movements swift, synchronized, and deadly. They wore heavy dark-gray tactical gear and carried suppressed carbines, their thermal visors glowing a faint, eerie green in the pitch-black air.
They thought they were walking into an empty safehouse.
“Sector clear,” the lead operative muttered into his comm-link, his voice muffled by his respirator. “Moving toward the primary vault corridor.”
They advanced past the wine racks, boots clicking softly against the stone floor.
I held my breath, my finger resting lightly on the trigger. Beside me, Evelyn was a statue in the dark.
As the second operative passed directly beneath the staging platform where Grace waited, my daughter moved.
With absolute silence, Grace dropped from the rafters like a spider descending on its prey. She wrapped the reinforced steel wire around the operative’s neck from behind, using her entire body weight to leverage him backward while driving her heel into his knee joint.
The man buckled instantly, his weapon clattering harmlessly against the stone tiles. Before he could scream, Grace swept him to the ground and secured a chokehold that put him out cold in three seconds flat.
“Contact!” the lead operative barked, spinning around with his carbine raised.
He didn't get a chance to fire. Evelyn lunged out from the shadow of the wine racks like a striking viper, slamming her steel baton directly into the operative’s weapon barrel, knocking it skyward, and following up with a brutal side-kick to his chest that sent him crashing backward into a stack of vintage wine crates. Bottles shattered, showering the floor in red liquid that looked uncannily like fresh blood.
The third operative raised his pistol toward Evelyn, but before he could pull the trigger, my rifle barked once.
Bang.
The bullet caught the operative in the shoulder armor, spinning him around and dropping him to his knees. I stepped out from behind the pillar, kicking his weapon away and pressing the barrel of my gun against his forehead.
“Don’t move,” I snarled.
The cellar went quiet once more, save for the heavy breathing of the defeated mercenaries scattered across the floor.
Grace stepped out from the shadows, brushing dust off her shoulders, her face completely calm.
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“Three down,” Evelyn reported, checking the pulse of the lead operative she had taken down. “And based on the comm chatter, Gregor is bringing the remaining three through the main tunnel right behind them.”
“Let them come,” I said, a dangerous, cold fury settling into my chest. “We finish this tonight.”
