Chapter 3 - The Board’s ExecutionerCinematic Prompt & Visual GuidanceVideo Prompt (15-sec cinematic realistic): Close-up of Thomas’s phone screen flashing red with an incoming encrypted call. Outside the window, a gloved hand knocks on the front door. Thomas’s hand tightening around his phone, veins visible on his wrist. Subdued tension, slow pan from the phone up to Thomas’s hardened, dangerous expression. Cinematic depth of field.
"Eliminated?" Thomas repeated the word, each syllable tasting like poison on his tongue.
"They tracked your vehicle’s telemetry the moment you parked in that suburb," Marcus said over the encrypted line, his voice urgent. "A second team is already moving toward the house from the rear alley. Sir, you have less than sixty seconds before they breach."
Thomas ended the call without a word. He looked at Elena, whose eyes were wide with a sudden, dawning terror. She had spent ten years thinking the worst part of her life was losing Thomas Blackwood. She was about to learn how wrong she was.
"Who are they?" Elena whispered, grabbing the edge of his sleeve. "Thomas, who was on the phone? What’s happening?"
"Pack a bag," Thomas ordered, his voice shifting instantly into the cold, tactical tone of a man accustomed to life-or-death corporate warfare. "Grab whatever Sophie needs for a week. Now."
"I'm not going anywhere with you until you explain—"
"Elena!" Thomas grabbed her shoulders, his grip firm, his eyes burning with an intensity that brooked no argument. "If you stay in this house for two more minutes, you and my daughter will be dead before the sun goes down. My partners—the men who helped me build Blackwood Industries—don't share. They don't forgive. And they certainly don't tolerate loose ends."
Before Elena could process the warning, the heavy oak front door didn't just open—it exploded inward.
Splintered wood showered across the tiny hallway. Two men in tactical black gear, faces obscured by balaclavas and tactical goggles, stepped into the living room. In the hands of the lead operative was a suppressed tactical carbine, the muzzle pointed straight toward the kitchen archway.
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"Mr. Blackwood," a distorted, electronic voice rasped from the lead operative's comm-unit. "The Chairman sends his regards. He said family reunions are best handled... permanently."
Thomas didn't hesitate. With a violent shove, he pushed Elena and Sophie behind the heavy oak pantry door just as the first suppressed shot shattered the kitchen window, sending shards of glass raining down like lethal hail.
