Chapter 3 - Night of the Shadows
"Emma!" Sabrina shrieked in the dark, pulling the toddler tightly to her chest.
"Stay down!" Grant commanded instantly.
Emergency backup generators were supposed to kick in within three seconds, but the mansion remained cloaked in darkness. Someone had sabotaged the primary and secondary power grids from the inside.
Suddenly, the heavy glass skylight above the central atrium shattered with a deafening crash. Glass rained down like diamond dust into the grand hallway outside the study.
"They're inside!" Grant barked. He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a concealed semi-automatic firearm, and clicked off the safety.
Outside the study, silenced gunfire rang out—thwip, thwip, thwip—followed by the heavy thuds of Grant’s security guards hitting the floor.
"Vanessa!" Grant yelled into the darkness. "Get behind the desk!"
There was no answer from Vanessa.
A split second later, the heavy oak doors of the study were kicked open. Red laser sight beams crisscrossed the room, cutting through the shadows.
"Move and you die!" a harsh, tactical-voiced intruder shouted.
Grant fired twice through the gloom, dropping the first mercenary in the doorway. "Sabrina, into the safe room! Behind the bookcase! Push the red panel!"
Sabrina didn't hesitate. Driven by pure maternal instinct, she crawled along the Persian rug, shielding Emma with her own body. She reached the bookcase, found the hidden mechanical latch, and shoved it. A heavy steel door swung open silently.
"In! Go!" Grant ordered, firing two more suppression shots at the encroaching shadows.
Sabrina scrambled into the dark safe room with Emma. As she turned back, she saw through the moonlight pouring from the window that Grant was pinned near the desk by two heavily armed men in black gear.
And standing right behind those men, holding a flashlight and looking remarkably calm, was Vanessa.
"Search the room!" Vanessa commanded the mercenaries, her voice stripped of all charm, replaced by a ruthless, icy authority. "Find the girl! We cannot let that child leave this estate alive!"
"Vanessa... you traitorous bitch," Grant growled, fighting against the mercenaries holding him down.
Vanessa walked up to Grant, wiping a smudge of dirt from her designer jacket. "Oh, Grant. You were always so brilliant at finance, but so blind when it came to love. Did you really think I fell in love with your brooding personality?"
"You orchestrated Julianna's crash," Grant said, his eyes burning with lethal fury.
"My father and I needed the Hawthorne global assets," Vanessa sneered. "Julianna found out that our family was using your shipping routes to traffic illegal arms. She was going to blow the whistle. So, we had her car pushed off the cliff. Imagine our surprise when we realized she survived long enough to drop a brat!"
"Where is my sister?!" Grant demanded, pushing against his captors with ferocious strength.
"Oh, don't worry," Vanessa smirked, pulling a small silver detonator from her pocket. "Julianna has been rotting in a private psychiatric facility under a fake name in upstate New York for the last four years. We kept her sedated just in case we needed her biometric access codes someday. But now? Now that the kid showed up, the entire plan is ruined. We have to wipe the slate clean."
Inside the panic room, Sabrina held her breath, her hand covering Emma’s mouth. Tears streamed down her face. Julianna is alive!
Vanessa turned to the mercenary leader. "Plant the charges. Burn this mansion to the ground. Make it look like an electrical fire caused by the storm. Kill Grant, kill the maid, and destroy the child."
"Yes, ma'am," the mercenary leader replied.
Vanessa turned her back and walked toward the patio doors to make her escape into the rainy night.
Inside the panic room, Sabrina looked at Emma. The child’s eyes were wide, filled with trust. Sabrina knew that if she stayed hidden, she and Emma might survive until police arrived—but Grant would die. The man who had just promised to protect them would be murdered.
Sabrina set Emma down in the corner of the safe room. "Emma, baby, stay right here. Don't make a sound. Mommy will be right back."
"Mommy..." Emma whispered.
Sabrina grabbed a heavy titanium fire extinguisher hanging inside the safe room wall. Her hands shook, but her resolve turned to steel. She was no longer just a frightened maid. She was a mother fighting for her family’s future.
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Sabrina stepped out of the safe room silently, slipping through the shadows behind the mercenary who was preparing a plastic explosive charge near the desk.
With a primal scream, Sabrina swung the titanium fire extinguisher with all the force in her body, slamming it directly into the back of the mercenary's head!
