Chapter 6 - SMOKE AND MIRRORSDante’s plan was brilliantly insane. He instructed Natalie to pack a single backpack with Liam’s clothes, essential documents, and all the cash she had hidden in the house. While she did that, Dante went to work in the kitchen.
Using a bottle of high-proof rubbing alcohol, old rags, and a propane camping tank from the back porch, he rigged a controlled distraction near the shed thirty yards away from the cabin.
“When I set off the propane tank, Viktor’s snipers will shift their focus and thermal scopes toward the shed,” Dante explained, whispering in the dim kitchen light. “They’ll assume we’re trying to make a run for the vehicles. That’s our window.”
“And Liam?” Natalie asked, her voice trembling slightly as she zipped up the backpack.
“I carry him,” Dante said firmly. “You cover our six with the Glock. Goliath takes point. He knows these woods better than any of Viktor’s men.”
Natalie looked down at the massive Neapolitan mastiff, who sat quietly by the door as if he understood every word being said. The dog let out a low huff, his amber eyes fixed on the front door.
“Ready?” Dante asked, gripping his tactical knife in his left hand while keeping his right hand steady on his side.
Natalie took a deep breath, shouldered the backpack, and nodded. “Let’s end this.”
Dante reached out and pulled the string on the improvised rig near the shed.
BOOM.
A massive fireball erupted outside, illuminating the foggy Blackwood Forest in a brilliant orange flash. Shouts echoed through the trees as red laser sights from sniper rifles instantly whipped away from the cabin windows and converged on the burning shed.
“Now! Move, move, move!” Dante barked.
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He kicked open the back door, sweeping the treeline with fierce intensity. Natalie grabbed Liam—who was half-asleep and clutching his stuffed bear—and sprinted out into the freezing mud, Goliath leading the charge like a slate-gray panther.
They plunged into the dense, dark underbrush of the Appalachian woods just as a hail of suppressed gunfire chewed up the wooden railing of the back porch they had left behind.
