Chapter 4 - The Betrayal at the Docks
THE PLOT THICKENS: THE MAN HE TRUSTED WITH HIS LIFE JUST SOLD OUT HIS ONLY DAUGHTER. THE LIFEGUARD WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO SAW IT COMING.
The panic room was a sterile, stainless-steel box hidden behind a false mirror in Matteo’s master suite. Maya sat on the floor, holding Leonora tight against her chest as the muffled sounds of gunfire and explosions echoed through the reinforced walls.
Leo was shaking, her tiny hands gripping Maya’s linen shirt so hard the fabric tore. "Maya," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Is Daddy going to die?"
Maya squeezed her tighter, kissing the top of the girl’s head. "No, sweetie. Your daddy is the scariest thing in this city. He’s going to be fine."
But as Maya stared at the closed-circuit monitor inside the panic room, which showed the various halls of the mansion, she realized something was terribly wrong. The attackers weren't wandering blindly. They knew exactly which corridors were unpatrolled. They knew the bypass codes for the secondary security doors.
This wasn't an infiltration. It was an inside job.
On the screen displaying the underground garage, she saw Marco—Matteo’s right-hand man, the head of his security detail, the man who had run her background check on night one. He wasn't firing at the invaders. He was handing them a keycard.
"Marco," Maya whispered, her blood running cold.
The monitor suddenly went black. The power to the panic room cut out, plunging them into absolute darkness except for the dim green glow of the emergency backup strip on the floor.
The electronic lock on the heavy steel door clicked.
Someone had overridden the master security code from the main terminal.
Maya didn't hesitate. She pushed Leonora under a steel bench at the back of the room. "Stay here, Leo. Don't make a sound. Remember the ocean? Be like the stone at the bottom. Quiet. Still."
The heavy door groaned as it began to swing outward.
Maya stepped into the shadows beside the frame, raising the pistol Matteo had given her with both hands, her heart hammering like a trapped bird against her ribs.
A silhouette stepped through the threshold. The beam of a tactical flashlight sliced through the darkness, scanning the empty room.
"Leonora? Miss Hart? Come out, it's safe. Mr. Vance sent me to get you," Marco’s voice echoed, smooth, reassuring, and completely lethal.
Maya didn't shout a warning. She knew from her training that hesitation in a crisis meant death. As Marco took another step into the room, she brought the heavy butt of the pistol down with all her strength against the back of his neck.
Marco grunted, stumbling forward, his flashlight dropping to the floor. But he was a trained operative; he rolled with the blow, turning instantly and swinging a heavy backhand that caught Maya across the jaw.
The force of the blow sent her spinning into the wall, tasting copper in her mouth. The pistol flew from her hand, skittering across the steel floor.
"You stupid bitch," Marco hissed, wiping a trickle of blood from his neck as he drew his own weapon. "You should have stayed on the beach."
He aimed the gun right between her eyes.
Maya closed her eyes, preparing for the impact.
BANG.
The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space. But Maya didn't feel pain. She opened her eyes to see Marco frozen, a neat, smoking hole precisely between his eyebrows. He collapsed forward like a felled tree, revealing Matteo standing in the doorway, his face covered in soot and blood, his rifle still aimed at his dead friend’s position.
Matteo didn't look at the corpse. He stepped over it, dropping his weapon and pulling Maya up by her arms, his eyes scanning her face, pausing on the bruising swelling along her jaw.
"Did he touch Leonora?" Matteo’s voice was a guttural growl, raw with an emotion Maya had never heard from him before—pure, unadulterated terror.
"No," Maya gasped, spitting blood onto the floor. "She’s safe. Under the bench."
Leonora scrambled out, throwing herself into her father’s arms. Matteo buried his face in his daughter’s hair, his massive shoulders trembling for a single second before he locked his iron facade back into place.
He looked at Maya, his eyes burning with something terrifyingly intense. "We have to move. Marco sold the shipping manifests to the Corbans. They don't just want Leonora anymore. They’ve seized my primary distribution hub at the Port of Los Angeles. If they secure those docks, my family falls by morning."
May you like
"Then let it fall!" Maya shouted, grabbing his arm. "Take your daughter and run!"
Matteo looked down at her hand on his arm, then into her eyes. "If I run, they hunt us forever. In my world, you don't run from the storm, Maya. You break it."
