Chapter 4 - The Siege of Cedarhaven"Get down!" Bennett roared, crossing the room in two long strides.
He shoved Clara and Mia behind the heavy mahogany desk just as a volley of high-caliber rounds chewed through the oak panels. Wood splinters exploded into the air, raining down like shrapnel.
"Walter!" Bennett bellowed into the comm-link embedded in his collar. "Status!"
"Boss, we're compromised!" Walter’s voice barked back over heavy static and the roar of return fire. "At least two tactical teams breached the north gate simultaneously. They're using military-grade suppression gear. It’s not local muscle—it’s professionals!"
Bennett’s eyes hardened into flint. For four years, his enemies had laid low, cowed by his brutal retaliation. To hit Cedarhaven directly meant they had inside information. They knew about the supply shipment truck, and they knew exactly when the guard rotation shifted.
"Secure the panic room," Bennett ordered, drawing a heavy SIG Sauer P226 from a holster hidden beneath his vest. "Move the girl and her mother down through the east wing passage now."
"Negative, Boss! The east corridor is cut off. They blew the secondary fuse box. We're trapped in the west sector!"
Bennett cursed under his breath. He looked down behind the desk. Clara was shielding Mia with her entire body, tears streaming down her face, while the little girl whimpered softly, clutching her cat.
"Listen to me," Bennett said, kneeling beside them. His voice was absolute, cutting through the chaos of shattering glass and gunfire echoing from the grand foyer. "There is a reinforced panic bunker beneath this desk. When I lift the latch, you go in. Do not look back. Do not make a sound."
"Mr. Cross—" Clara sobbed.
"Do it!" Bennett commanded.
With a sharp pull, a hidden floor panel slid open beneath the Persian rug, revealing a dark, steel-lined chute and ladder leading downward. Bennett guided Clara and Mia inside, dropping a heavy keypad-locked steel lid over the entrance just as the heavy study doors splintered open.
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Footsteps—heavy, calculated, and tactical—pounded across the Persian rug.
Bennett stepped out from behind the wreckage of the desk, raising his pistol with cold, lethal precision.
