Chapter 18 - A Daughter’s WitDeep inside the reinforced subterranean panic room, the heavy steel door sealed shut with a hydraulic hiss.
Lily sat on a leather bench, holding her brown teddy bear tightly, while Maya stood guard by the reinforced door with an assault rifle.
“Are we going to be okay, Maya?” Lily asked, her voice calm despite the muffled sounds of explosions echoing through the floorboards above.
“Your father is out there, Lily,” Maya replied firmly. “Nothing can get past him.”
“I know,” Lily said softly. Then, her eyes drifted to the secondary security control console built into the wall of the panic room—a hidden interface Dominic had shown her months ago just in case of an emergency.
Lily slipped off the bench, walked over to the console, and tapped the touch screen.
Through the infrared exterior cameras, she spotted a tactical squad of four mercenaries creeping along the second-floor east gallery—right behind Vince’s blind spot as he defended the main staircase.
“Maya,” Lily pointed at the screen. “The bad guys are behind Uncle Vince.”
Maya’s eyes widened as she looked at the monitor. “Damn it—they’re flanking the east wing!”
“Watch this,” Lily said with absolute, chilling composure.
Using her small fingers, Lily bypassed the manual override codes, tapping the master control for the estate’s automated internal fire-suppression sprinklers and hydraulic security shutters.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Heavy steel security shutters slammed down across the east gallery windows and doorways instantly, trapping Lorenzo’s flanking squad in a narrow, confined corridor. Simultaneously, high-pressure fire hoses flooded the hallway with freezing water, blinding their night-vision goggles and short-circuiting their tactical comms.
Stunned and disoriented, the mercenaries stumbled backward into each other.
Vance, reacting instantly to the commotion behind him, turned the corner and neutralized the trapped squad in seconds without sustaining a single scratch.
May you like
Back in the panic room, Lily crossed her arms and nodded with satisfaction. “Got ’em.”
Maya stared at the eight-year-old girl in absolute, stunned silence, realizing with a shiver that Lily had inherited far more than just her father’s blue eyes—she had inherited his tactical brilliance.
