Chapter 13 - The Midnight Raid
I returned to the Buckhead mansion well past midnight, expecting to find the house quiet and bathed in the soft glow of security lights. Instead, the front gates stood wide open, their biometric sensors blinking erratically in the dark.
My heart seized in my chest.
I slammed the Maybach into park before it had even fully stopped, ripped the door open, and sprinted up the stone steps toward the grand entrance. The heavy oak front door was blown off its hinges, splintered wood littering the marble foyer.
“Claire!” I roared, drawing my sidearm from my shoulder holster.
Silence answered me—a suffocating, dead silence broken only by the distant, rhythmic dripping of a leaking fountain in the courtyard.
Marcus and a four-man tactical team poured out of the hallway seconds later, their rifles raised.
“Boss! The perimeter alarms were bypassed simultaneously across all sectors using a military-grade EMP generator,” Marcus reported, his face grim. “They didn't break in. They blinded our systems.”
“Where are my wife and children?” My voice shook with a terror I hadn't felt since the night Claire was poisoned in the hospital.
“They’re not in the master suite,” Marcus said, holding up a small, blood-stained silver cufflink he had found near the grand staircase. “Look at this. The Crest of the House of Sterling.”
A dark, blinding rage washed over me, burning away every trace of civilized restraint. Alistair Sterling hadn't just ignored my warning; he had launched a direct assault on my home while I was confronting him at the Capital Club. He had taken my family.
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“Track that cufflink,” I commanded, my voice cold as liquid nitrogen. “Every high-end jeweler in Europe logs custom orders. Find out which private airstrip Sterling’s aircraft filed flight plans for within the last hour.”
“Done,” Marcus replied, tapping his tactical tablet. “Private hangar 4 at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport. His Gulfstream G650 is idling on the tarmac right now.”
