Chapter 7 - The Siege
The concussive shockwave from the front door explosion violently shook the heavy steel walls of the panic room.
I held Lily tightly against my chest, covering her small ears to protect her from the deafening noise.
Through the high-definition security monitors on the wall, I watched dozens of armed mercenaries storm the house.
They were wearing expensive night-vision goggles and carrying heavily modified automatic weapons.
My father was absolutely not hiding from them in the dark corridors of his massive home.
He had entirely booby-trapped the entire first floor with non-lethal, high-voltage stun charges.
The first three mercenaries stepped on a pressure plate in the hallway and were violently electrocuted into unconsciousness.
My father moved through the shadows with terrifying, completely lethal precision.
He was systematically taking out the cartel hitmen one by one using a suppressed pistol.
I watched the screens in absolute awe as my retired father fought like a highly trained ghost.
But there were simply too many armed men pouring through the shattered windows.
A massive mercenary kicked open the study door and immediately spotted the hidden seams of our panic room.
He yelled for backup and began aggressively planting a block of C4 plastic explosive directly onto our steel door.
I knew the reinforced metal would not withstand a direct blast from military-grade explosives.
My father saw the immediate danger on his own tactical monitor and sprinted back toward the study.
He engaged in a brutal, hand-to-hand fight with the mercenary planting the bomb.
My father successfully knocked the man out, but a sniper's bullet violently shattered the study window.
The heavy caliber round struck my father directly in his right shoulder, sending him crashing to the floor.
I screamed in absolute terror and immediately punched the emergency override button to open the panic room door.
I rushed out, grabbed my bleeding father by his tactical vest, and violently dragged him inside.
The heavy steel door slammed shut and locked just seconds before the remaining mercenaries flooded the hallway.
My father groaned in pain but quickly applied a heavy tourniquet to his bleeding arm.
He looked at me with a grim, entirely serious expression on his pale face.
"They are going to blow this door in less than two minutes," my father wheezed heavily.
He pressed a hidden button underneath the desk, and a completely secret trapdoor opened in the floor.
"Take Lily and crawl through this tunnel, it leads directly to a boat hidden under the dock," he ordered.
I absolutely refused to leave him behind, grabbing his good arm to help him stand up.
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But as I pulled him toward the dark tunnel, Lily suddenly gasped and pointed at her glowing phone screen.
My husband had completely bypassed the security cameras and was broadcasting a live video feed directly to us.
