Chapter 3 - The Traitor in the House
The silence in the mahogany office was thick enough to choke on.
Gabriel stared at the wall, his mind clearly racing through a thousand violent possibilities.
“Are you certain of the numbers?” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
“Seven, one, four,” Leah repeated, her heart hammering against her ribs.
She did not tell him that those numbers belonged to her dead father.
Gabriel marched over to a digital intercom on his desk and slammed his fist onto the button.
“Lock down the estate, nobody gets in, nobody gets out,” he barked into the speaker.
A sharp voice replied immediately.
“Yes, boss, locking down the perimeter now,” the head of security answered.
Gabriel turned back to Leah, his dark eyes analyzing her with intense suspicion.
“You need to stay in this room and lock the door behind me,” he ordered.
“What is going on?” Leah pleaded, stepping back as he checked the magazine of a matte-black pistol.
“Someone in my inner circle let Cecilia out of the house tonight,” Gabriel explained coldly.
“They wanted her to drown in that canal to break me, and they wanted me to know they have the key.”
Before Leah could ask anything else, the massive crystal chandelier above them flickered violently.
A second later, the entire mansion plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness.
Leah gasped, instinctively pressing her back against the nearest wall.
“Get down!” Gabriel roared in the darkness.
The heavy oak doors of the office splintered inward as a hail of suppressed gunfire shredded the room.
Wood and plaster exploded into the air, raining down on Leah’s hair.
Gabriel fired blindly into the hallway, the muzzle flash illuminating his furious, blood-splattered face.
He grabbed Leah by the arm, yanking her hard behind a massive bookshelf.
“My security chief just shut off the backup generators,” Gabriel hissed in her ear.
“He is the traitor, and he brought a hit squad into my home.”
Leah covered her ears as another volley of bullets shattered the bulletproof windows from the inside.
“We have to get Cecilia!” Leah yelled over the deafening noise.
“She is in the safe room, she is secure,” Gabriel yelled back, reloading his weapon.
“I need you to run to the service elevator when I lay down cover fire.”
Leah nodded, her entire body shaking with pure adrenaline and terror.
Gabriel stepped out from cover, firing three precise shots that dropped two shadows in the hallway.
“Go!” he screamed.
Leah bolted across the ruined office, her sneakers slipping on the broken glass.
She made it into the dark hallway, throwing herself into the open doors of the service elevator.
She turned back to see Gabriel running toward her, but a third shadow stepped out from the stairwell.
The assassin raised a shotgun directly at Gabriel’s back.
Without thinking, Leah grabbed a heavy bronze statue from a hallway pedestal and hurled it at the attacker.
The statue struck the man in the temple, throwing his aim off just enough for the shotgun blast to miss Gabriel.
Gabriel spun around, firing a single bullet that ended the threat instantly.
He threw himself into the elevator with Leah, slamming his hand onto the emergency override button.
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The doors closed, but as the elevator began to descend, the digital display flashed a chilling message.
“Manual Override Engaged: Destination Sub-Basement Incinerator.”
