Chapter 9 - The Siege of Lincoln ParkFrom inside the dark safety of the panic room, Mara watched the monitors with bated breath.
The security feeds showed Sloane walking out into the grand foyer alone, her submachine gun raised.
“Victor!” Sloane’s voice echoed through the estate’s intercom system. “You’re a fool. Adrian is already on a private jet back to Chicago.”
Victor stood by the grand staircase, unfazed, holding a smoking pistol. A dozen armed mercenaries fanned out behind him.
“Adrian is flying into a ghost town, Sloane,” Victor replied smoothly, stepping forward. “The commission in New York isn’t meeting with him. They’re executing him. And when the king falls, the castle burns. Now, where is the nurse?”
“Go to hell,” Sloane said.
The foyer erupted in gunfire.
Mara clapped her hands over her ears as the sound of automatic weapon fire echoed through the thick walls. On the monitor, Sloane fought like a demon, dropping three mercenaries before a concentrated burst of crossfire caught her in the shoulder and chest. She went down behind a marble pillar, still firing until her magazine clicked empty.
Victor stepped over Sloane’s fallen body, his face twisted in a cold, calculating grimace. He walked straight toward the hidden archive room where the panic room was housed.
“I know you’re watching, Mara!” Victor called out, his voice echoing through the hidden intercom speakers. “Open the door! Save yourself the terror of a slow death, and let’s make a deal!”
Mara’s hands shook as she looked down at the emergency communication console on the desk. There was only one outgoing frequency—a direct, encrypted satellite link to Adrian’s private jet.
She hit the transmitter.
“Adrian,” she whispered into the mic, her voice trembling but clear. “Adrian, do you copy?”
A fraction of a second later, the speaker crackled to life. The roar of jet engines filled the background, and Adrian’s voice came through—raw, furious, and terrifyingly cold.
“Mara? Status.”
“Victor turned. The estate is breached. Sloane is down,” she said quickly, tears stinging her eyes as she watched Victor on the monitor pull a heavy C4 explosive charge from his tactical vest and slap it against the archive room’s reinforced door. “He’s planting a charge on the panic room door, Adrian. He’s coming for me.”
Silence stretched over the encrypted line for one agonizing heartbeat.
When Adrian spoke, his voice wasn't human anymore. It was the voice of the devil himself.
“Listen to me very carefully, Mara,” Adrian commanded, his tone absolute and unbreakable. “Look into the wall locker on your left. Code is 0-3-1-7. Take the Sig Sauer pistol inside. Lock the inner deadbolt. And if that door opens, you shoot anything that doesn’t look like me.”
“Adrian, what are you going to do?”
“I’m coming home,” he whispered. Click.
The line went dead.
On the monitor, Victor pulled the pin on the C4 detonator’s timer. A digital red countdown began flashing: 03:00... 02:59...
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Mara turned, punched the code into the wall locker, pulled out the heavy black pistol, and racked the slide.
The nurse was gone. The queen of the syndicate had just woken up.
