Chapter 4 - Rain, Lead, and Old SinsThe hallway outside the study was a war zone.
Smoke from a flashbang grenade hung thick and acrid in the air, smelling of sulfur and burnt wool. Bruno was kneeling behind an overturned oak console, pumping shells into his Remington with frantic urgency as return fire chipped stone from the wainscoting.
“How many, Bruno?” Austin called out, sliding into the hallway beside him with his Sig Sauer drawn and a spare magazine clenched between his teeth.
“At least ten in the foyer! Another squad coming up the grand staircase!” Bruno shouted over the rattling din of a submachine gun sweeping the corridor. “They’ve got night-vision gear and suppressors! They’re not taking prisoners, boss!”
Austin peeked around the corner. A laser sight flickered across the floral wallpaper just inches from his nose.
Clack.
He dropped a flashbang of his own, pulled the pin with his teeth, and bounced it hard off the marble floor around the corner.
BANG.
A blinding white flash illuminated the hallway, followed immediately by high-pitched screams and the clatter of dropped hardware. Austin didn’t hesitate. He stepped around the corner, two quick shots ringing out in rapid succession. Down the hall, two tactical operatives in black gear collapsed against the wall, sliding down into dark, crumpled heaps.
“Keep the rear secure!” Austin ordered, reloading his pistol with a smooth, practiced flick of his wrist. “Get Rosa and Jacey down to the sub-basement bunker now!”
“What about you, Mr. Cole?” Bruno yelled, firing another devastating buckshot blast down the corridor.
“I’m going to go welcome our guests properly.”
Austin sprinted toward the grand staircase, his boots sliding slightly on the blood-slicked marble. The storm outside was howling now, driving sheets of rain through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows of the foyer. The crystal chandelier hung at a drunken angle, swinging slowly above a dozen shattered glass shards.
At the bottom of the grand staircase stood a man wearing an unmarked tactical helmet and a heavy ceramic vest. In his hands, he carried a customized HK MP5 with an integrated suppressor.
The man raised his weapon toward Austin’s chest.
“It’s over, Cole,” a filtered, electronic voice rasped through the tactical comms unit. “The Senator sends his regards.”
“Tell Arthur Vance,” Austin said, stepping directly into the crosshairs without a trace of fear, “that his father sends his best from hell.”
Before the mercenary could pull the trigger, the heavy double doors of the front entrance flew off their hinges with a thunderous crash. A massive black armored SUV—Austin’s personal bulletproof Suburban—crashed right through the mahogany doors, pinning the mercenary against the base of the marble staircase with a sickening crunch of steel and bone.
The engine roared, tires spinning furiously on the wet marble as the driver’s door pushed open.
A woman stepped out of the driver's seat, wiping rain from her dark hair, holding an assault rifle casually across her chest.
Her eyes met Austin’s through the swirling smoke and rain.
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It wasn't Elena.
It was Sarah Vance—the Senator’s own daughter, and the chief legal counsel for the federal task force that had supposedly put the Bullards away six years ago.
