Chapter 16 - THE BLAZING SAFEHOUSE: DAVID’S FINAL STAND AND A MOTHER’S REVENGE
David knew he was a dead man walking. With his backers wiped out by Dante’s wrath, he made one last insane move. He paid a traitorous guard to leak the location of our private mountain retreat where Leo and I were recovering.
While Dante’s main strike force was dispatched to handle a decoy disturbance down the valley, David and a crew of desperate mercenaries surrounded the retreat, spreading gasoline along the wooden perimeter and setting the structure ablaze.
Roaring flames consumed the halls within minutes. Thick black smoke filled the air as the roof beams began to crack and collapse.
“Maya!” David yelled through the wall of fire, holding a shotgun. “Come out and hand over the inheritance keys, or you both burn in here!”
I pulled Leo into the reinforced stone bathroom, locking him inside. “Stay here, Leo. Don't open this door for anyone except your father.”
I grabbed a heavy steel fire poker from the hearth. Ignoring the searing heat blistered across my skin, I threw myself through the curtain of flames, striking David’s mercenary in the side of the head before he could raise his weapon.
David turned in terror, but I was already upon him. I drove the heavy steel poker into his shoulder, knocking him backward into the burning timber.
May you like
He fell to the floor, screaming as the flames caught his clothes. I stood over him, the fire reflecting in my eyes, towering like a goddess of vengeance.
“You stole my baby, you stole six years of my life, and you tried to burn my home,” I said, stepping over his writhing body as Dante kicked open the front entrance through the fire. “Now, pay your debt to the flames.”
