Chapter 3 - COUNTER-TACTICS
"Who are they, Grant?" I asked smoothly, shifting my weight, keeping my body between the laser scopes and my daughter.
Grant stepped out from behind the armed men. He looked different now—the weak, sniveling facade was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating desperation.
"Meet Vanguard Security," Grant said, adjusting his cuffs. "Private contractors. Vanessa’s family owns the firm. Did you really think Vanessa was just a high-end gold-digger, Evelyn? Her father is Richard Vale—the chairman of the defense board that oversees your federal task force."
The puzzle pieces snapped together with terrifying precision.
Vanessa hadn't just seduced my husband; her family had targeted my family’s estate and my federal security clearances. They used Grant’s greed to dismantle my life while I was stuck off-grid in the wilderness.
"Your mother was an unfortunate complication," Grant continued, stepping closer. "She caught on too fast. And now, you’ve come back too early. If you had just stayed dead in the field like you were supposed to..."
"Supposed to?" I echoed. "The ambush in Minnesota... the leak that nearly got my unit killed last week. That was your doing?"
"Vanessa’s father has high-level clearances," Grant smirked. "It was remarkably easy to drop your coordinates to the cartel network. You were supposed to come back in a flag-draped box, Evelyn. Then I would inherit the entire Vance fortune legally, as the grieving widower raising our poor, traumatized daughter."
"And what about Lily?" I demanded, my hand tightening on my hidden pistol. "What were you going to do to her?"
Vanessa walked up behind Grant, her eyes gleaming with absolute malice. "The little brat saw too much the day her grandmother died," Vanessa said casually. "That’s why she stopped talking. We were just waiting for the estate transfer to complete before sending her to a... permanent care facility overseas. But since you’re here, we can just frame this as a tragic home invasion. A rogue agent coming home with PTSD, killing her family before being taken down."
"You talk too much, Vanessa," I said.
Before the contractor on the left could pull his trigger, I dropped low.
I fired three quick shots through the drywall beside the doorframe. The drywall collapsed into a cloud of white dust, blinding the mercenary’s night-vision goggles.
I kicked the desk heavy-end first into the second mercenary, crushing his knees. He went down with a sickening crack.
"Lily! Under the desk! Stay down!" I shouted.
I spun, sweeping the feet out from under the first guard, disarming his rifle in one fluid motion, and slamming the butt of the stock into his temple. He went limp instantly.
Grant screamed like a coward and sprinted down the hall. Vanessa turned to run, but I grabbed her by her styled hair, yanking her backward onto the floor.
"You like putting your feet on little girls?" I growled, stepping heavily onto her wrist until I heard her bone pop.
Vanessa shrieked in agony, writhing on the carpet. "You crazy bitch! My father will destroy you!"
"He can try," I whispered, kicking her weapon away and locking her to the hallway radiator with a pair of steel flex-cuffs from my vest.
I grabbed Lily from under the desk, wrapped her in my tactical jacket, and sprinted down the stairs after Grant.
May you like
He wasn't trying to escape the house. He was heading for the basement vault—where my family kept our off-grid emergency comms and encrypted flash drives.
He was trying to destroy the evidence.
