Chapter 3 - MIDNIGHT SIEGE
Title: The Battle for the Manor
"Protect the children!" Michael roared, pulling a concealed firearm from his holster beneath his jacket.
"They aren't here for you, Michael!" Vanessa laughed wildly from her chair. "Julian knew I’d get caught eventually! He sent his clean-up crew to erase everyone—you, the kids, and me!"
Michael didn't waste time on her. He left two guards to watch Vanessa and sprinted up the stairs toward the second-floor nursery.
Gunfire shattered the grand stained-glass windows of the foyer. The sound of automatic rifles echoed through the marble corridors. Julian’s mercenaries had bypassed the security grid using internal access codes that only Vanessa could have provided.
Michael burst into the children's panic room just as two masked gunmen kicked open the nursery doors.
BANG! BANG!
Michael fired twice with surgical precision. Both mercenaries collapsed to the carpet.
"Ethan! Lily! Get in the safe vault now!" Michael shouted, shoving the children into the reinforced steel room hidden behind the nursery closet.
"Daddy, don't leave us!" Lily sobbed, clinging to his leg.
"I am never leaving you again," Michael promised, kissing her forehead. "Lock the door from the inside and don't open it for anyone except me or Marcus. Understand?"
Ethan nodded bravely, pulling his sister inside and hitting the heavy electronic seal.
With his children secure, Michael turned into a predator. He knew every square inch of his 30,000-square-foot estate. He cut the main power grid, plunging the mansion into pitch-black darkness.
Using night-vision goggles handed to him by Marcus, Michael stalked through the corridors. One by one, Julian’s mercenaries were neutralized in silence—flanked, disarmed, and put down.
Within twenty minutes, the gunfight subsided. Seven mercenaries lay bound on the ground.
Michael walked back down to the grand foyer, where Marcus was holding a captured mercenary leader by his collar.
"Who ordered the hit?" Michael demanded.
The mercenary spat blood onto the floor. "Go to hell, Carter. Vance paid us five million. You’re already dead anyway. Look at the news."
Marcus turned on his tactical tablet and handed it to Michael.
The headlines on every major financial news outlet were screaming in bold red letters:
BREAKING NEWS: CARTER GLOBAL CEO MICHAEL CARTER REPORTED DECEASED IN DOMESTIC ACCIDENT. JULIAN VANCE APPOINTED TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD.
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"They launched the takeover early," Marcus whispered in horror. "They’re holding an emergency board meeting right now at the Vance Tower downtown!"
Michael wiped a trace of sweat from his brow, his eyes cold as steel. "They think I'm dead. Good. That means they won't see me coming."
