Chapter 5 - THE SIEGE OF QUEENSHook: Surrounded by Russian killers in a decaying death trap, Adrien and Lena have only one way out—through a wall of lead and fire.
"Get down!" Adrien roared, shoving Lena behind a heavy brick chimney stack in the center of the rotting room.
Automatic gunfire shredded the exterior walls of the Victorian house. Wood splinters, drywall dust, and lead slugs tore through the air in a deafening cacophony. Glass shattered in a cascading wave of destruction as bullets pierced every window on the ground and second floors.
Marcus curled into a fetal ball on the floor, screaming in blind panic until a stray round clipped his shoulder, silencing him into a whimpering shock.
"Marco! Status!" Adrien yelled over the din, drawing his twin Sig Sauer pistols with fluid, deadly grace.
"They've cut off the front and back exits!" Marco shouted back, firing a calculated burst through a shattered window frame. "We're boxed in! They want the girl and they want the diary!"
Adrien looked down at Lena. Her hazel eyes were wide, but instead of paralyzing fear, a fierce, desperate courage burned within them. She clutched the leather diary tightly to her chest.
"They're not getting it," Lena said, her voice cutting through the gunfire.
Adrien smiled—a fierce, wild grin that belonged on a battlefield. "That's my girl."
He kicked open a rotting access door leading to the attic. "Marco, cover our flank! We're taking the roof route!"
Adrien hoisted Lena over his shoulder like a sack of grain, ignoring her protests as bullets chipped the doorframe inches from his head. He vaulted up the wooden ladder, kicking it down behind them just as a hail of bullets riddled the staircase.
The attic was stifling, smelling of old insulation and dust. Adrien forced open the rusted roof skylight, pushing himself out onto the rain-slicked slate shingles. The wind howled around them, carrying the smell of ozone and gunpowder.
Below, in the overgrown yard, four masked men in tactical gear were positioning a breaching charge against the front door.
Adrien raised his pistol. In the pouring rain, without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger three times.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Two of the operatives dropped instantly. The remaining two scrambled for cover behind their armored vehicle, returning wild, blind fire toward the roof.
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"Hold on to me, Lena," Adrien commanded, his arm wrapping securely around her waist. "We're going down."
Before she could ask how, Adrien leaped from the roof toward the overhanging branch of a massive oak tree, swinging them both down into the brush just as a massive explosion ripped through the Victorian house behind them.
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