Chapter 5 - War in the Penthouse"No!" I screamed, lunging across the table and grabbing Arthur by the lapels of his suit, slamming him against the glass wall. The city lights glared eighty floors below us. "If a single hair on their heads is touched, I will personally throw you out this window, Arthur!"
Arthur choked, clawing at my hands, his arrogance instantly evaporating into sheer panic. "It wasn't... it wasn't supposed to go this far! Victoria went rogue! She hired freelance mercenaries to grab the kids as leverage to force the board to reinstate Marcus!"
I shoved him violently into the chair, snatched my encrypted satellite phone from the desk, and hit the emergency override code for the penthouse defense system.
"Security team Alpha, this is Elena Reynolds," I barked into the phone as I sprinted toward the private elevator bank. "Code Black in the 80th-floor penthouse. Shoot to kill. Do not negotiate."
The private elevator shot upward like a rocket, the G-force pressing my chest into my ribs. My mind was racing at a million miles an hour. Victoria thought she had won. She thought she could steal my children to blackmail the empire. She didn't realize she had just walked into a trap crafted by a mother who had spent five years surviving the gutter.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft ding into the penthouse foyer.
The smell of cordite and burnt gunpowder hung heavy in the air. Glass from shattered floor-to-ceiling windows littered the imported Persian rugs, letting the freezing mountain wind howl inside.
"Mom!"
A small voice cried out from behind the grand piano.
I whipped around, drawing a small, legally registered Walther PPK from the secret holster strapped to my thigh—a parting gift from my late grandfather, a military intelligence veteran.
Two masked mercenaries rounded the corner of the hallway, their assault rifles raised. They didn't even have time to pull their triggers. Two rapid, deafening cracks echoed through the luxury penthouse. Both men dropped instantly, clutching their shoulders as they hit the floor in agony.
Stepping out from behind the piano, holding a heavy brass fire extinguisher like a baseball bat, was eight-year-old Ethan. Behind him stood Noah, Sophia, and Olivia, completely calm, holding encrypted data tablets in their hands.
"Took you long enough, Mom," Ethan said coolly, wiping a smudge of soot off his cheek. "We locked down the smart-home security grid three minutes before they breached the door. Noah disabled their comms, and Sophia uploaded their location coordinates to Interpol."
I stared at my son in sheer disbelief, my heart swelling with a terrifying, overwhelming pride. They weren't just Marcus’s carbon copies. They were mine, too.
"Are you all right?" I rushed forward, dropping to my knees and pulling all four of them into a fierce, suffocating embrace.
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"We're fine," Olivia whispered, patting my back. "The bad lady is in the master suite. She tried to escape through the balcony, but the automated turret defense system locked the doors from the outside."
I stood up, gripping my pistol, my eyes locked on the heavy oak doors of the master suite. "Stay here with the guards," I whispered to Ethan. "Mom has some unfinished business."
