Chapter 7 - Breakout and Bloodshed"They're coming through the service corridor!" the surviving security guard shouted, leveling his assault rifle toward the double doors.
"Don't shoot!" Alexander commanded, stepping in front of Grace. "They want the drive. If we fire back in the dark, we're sitting ducks."
The heavy oak doors splintered inward with a deafening crash. Heavy combat boots hit the floor. Four figures in full tactical gear, faces obscured by night-vision goggles, swarmed into the library with weapons raised.
"Drop your weapons! On the floor, now!" the lead operative barked, his voice distorted by a tactical comms unit.
Alexander didn't hesitate. Raising his Walther PPK with military precision—a skill from his brief years at West Point before his father pulled him into the family empire—he fired three rapid shots into the antique chandelier overhead.
The massive crystal structure shattered, raining thousands of pounds of glass and blinding sparks down upon the intruders.
"Now!" Alexander yelled.
He grabbed Grace’s hand, pulling her hard toward the private panic room hidden behind the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Senator Prescott scrambled behind them, screeching in terror as a stray bullet chipped the marble floor inches from his Italian leather shoes.
"Get the girl!" one of the mercenaries roared through the smoke and falling glass.
Alexander shoved Grace inside the steel-reinforced panic room, diving in right behind her as Senator Prescott tumbled in like a sack of potatoes. Alexander slammed the heavy hydraulic control button on the wall.
Clang-hiss.
The eight-inch-thick steel door sealed shut just as heavy rifle rounds hammered against the outside, leaving deep, smoking indentations in the metal.
Inside the pitch-black panic room, the emergency red lights flickered on.
Grace was breathing heavily, her hand still clutched tightly in Alexander’s. In the cramped, secure space, the adrenaline finally gave way to the raw, aching reality of everything they had just lived through.
"Are you okay?" Alexander asked, his voice softer now, stripped of its corporate armor as his fingers checked her arms for injuries.
"I'm fine," Grace whispered, looking up at him in the dim red glow. "Your shoulder... you're bleeding."
Alexander glanced down at his left shoulder, where a graze from the window sniper’s bullet had torn through his bespoke shirt, staining the fabric dark red. He didn't even flinch.
"It's nothing," he muttered, turning to the control console. "The panic room has an independent satellite comms uplink. I can lock down Mercer Global’s global server network from here, but it will wipe every corporate account in the process."
Senator Prescott clutched his chest, gasping for air against the wall. "Wipe the accounts? Are you insane? That's fifty billion dollars in liquid assets! You'll destroy the entire New York exchange!"
"Better to burn it to the ground than let Marcus and your family steal it," Alexander replied coldly.
Grace gently placed her hand over his on the console. "Don't do it yet, Alexander. Look at the secondary screen."
Alexander blinked, turning back to the monitor. The feed from the estate’s front gates showed something completely unexpected.
May you like
Black federal SUVs with flashing lights were swarming the perimeter. Heavily armed FBI agents in tactical gear were storming the front steps, led by a tall woman with silver-streaked hair and an unyielding expression.
It was Director Vance of the Federal Financial Crimes Unit—and Grace’s aunt.
