Chapter 3 - THE HOME INVASION
They came at 2:00 AM.
Three heavily armed men. Dante, Silas, and Roman. They wore black ski masks and carried suppressed submachine guns. They cut the power to my suburban home from the street box, expecting to catch a sleeping, terrified widower in the dark.
They forgot that the dark is my element.
I was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the living room, wearing a pair of military-grade panoramic night-vision goggles. To them, the house was pitch black. To me, it was illuminated in crisp, glowing green.
Silas kicked the back door open. He stepped into the kitchen, his weapon raised.
I had removed the floorboards in the hallway. Silas took a step, his foot crashed through the trap, and he fell forward. Before he could scream, I emerged from the shadows behind him, wrapping a heavy tactical garrote around his throat. Ten seconds later, Silas was unconscious on the floor.
Two left.
Roman was sweeping the upstairs bedroom. I moved up the stairs with zero auditory signature. He turned the corner, his flashlight beam slicing through the darkness.
I didn't use a gun. I used the close-quarters combat knife strapped to my chest. I deflected his barrel, stepped inside his guard, and drove the pommel of the knife into his temple. Roman collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Suddenly, heavy automatic fire ripped through the drywall. Dante was firing blindly up the stairs.
"Show yourself, you coward!" Dante screamed.
I pulled a flashbang grenade from my tactical vest, pulled the pin, and tossed it down the stairs.
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BANG.
The blinding white light and deafening concussive blast blew Dante backward. I vaulted over the railing, landing softly on the first floor. By the time Dante’s vision returned, the cold steel barrel of my Sig Sauer P226 was pressed directly against his forehead.
