Chapter 5 - Blood on the Mahogany Desk
Gabriel didn’t hesitate. He left Evan pinned to the workbench, grabbing a heavy utility chain from the hook and wrapping it twice around Evan’s torso, locking it with an industrial padlock in less ten seconds.
“Stay here and think about your new corporate title,” Gabriel told him, his voice flat.
He scooped up Lucy, hoisting the eight-year-old onto his shoulder with one arm, while his other hand drew a custom-weighted Smith & Wesson from his shoulder holster.
“Hold on to my neck, Lucy,” Gabriel instructed quietly.
“Is Mr. Evan the bad guy now?” she whispered into his ear, her tiny arms wrapping tightly around his collar.
“The worst kind,” Gabriel replied as he sprinted back up the service stairs, taking them three at a time.
They reached the main floor in seconds. The mansion was dead silent—too silent. The natural hum of the central heating had been cut. The smart-home lighting system had shifted from warm amber to a sterile, emergency-white hue.
Gabriel moved through the service corridor toward the east wing, his boots making no sound against the Persian runners.
The double mahogany doors of his private study stood slightly ajar. A faint sliver of blue-gray smoke drifted out into the hallway, carrying the distinct, heavy aroma of expensive Russian tobacco.
Viktor Volkov.
Gabriel pushed the door open with the barrel of his gun.
Sitting behind Gabriel’s custom mahogany desk—the very desk where generations of Rowan patriarchs had signed contracts written in blood and ink—was a tall, silver-haired man in a bespoke charcoal suit. Viktor was casually turning Gabriel’s heavy gold fountain pen between his knuckles.
Two armed enforcers stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, their suppressed submachine guns pointed toward the door.
They didn’t even have time to raise their barrels.
Gabriel stepped into the room, his first shot taking the enforcer on the left clean through the throat before the man could draw a breath. The second enforcer spun, but Lucy—peering over Gabriel’s shoulder—shouted, “Duck!”
Gabriel dropped low as a burst of silenced bullets splintered the oak bookshelf behind him, then came up through the glass top of the coffee table, putting a 9mm round squarely between the second guard's eyes.
The room fell dead silent again, save for the ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the corner.
May you like
Viktor Volkov didn’t flinch. He didn’t stand up. He simply set the gold fountain pen down on the blotter, folded his hands over his stomach, and looked at Gabriel with cold, amused gray eyes.
“Gabriel,” Viktor said, his accent heavy and thick like old velvet. “I told Evan you would find out eventually. Boys with fourteen-year attachments are always so sentimentally blind.”
