Chapter 6 - Blood on the Marble
Red emergency lights flickered to life along the baseboards, casting long, bloody shadows across the library walls.
Ambrose moved like an apex predator in the dark.
With one hand, he drew his weapon; with the other, he shoved Rosalind down behind the massive mahogany desk.
“Pike, lock down the vault doors,” Ambrose ordered, his voice flat and perfectly controlled.
“They bypassed the outer perimeter sensors,” Pike said, typing rapidly on a glowing terminal screen behind the bookcase.
“They blew the south transformer.”
A heavy burst of automatic gunfire tore through the courtyard outside, shattering the upper stained-glass windows of the foyer.
Glass rained down on the hardwood floors like hail.
Rosalind curled her knees to her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Through the heavy oak doorway, she heard the heavy thud of tactical boots moving fast across the marble entry hall.
“Two intruders in the gallery,” Ambrose whispered, racking the slide of his pistol.
“Stay down, Rosalind.”
“Do not move until I tell you.”
He slipped through the library doors into the hallway, moving with eerie silence.
Rosalind stayed pressed against the desk for three agonizing seconds before her gaze fell on the floor.
Her father’s scorched book lay unprotected on the desk above her head.
A bullet tore through the bookshelf behind her, sending splinters of oak and paper flying into the air.
If a single stray round hit the book’s spine, the acid vial would break, and the truth about her father’s death would be lost forever.
Ignoring the gunfire, Rosalind scrambled to her feet, grabbed the heavy iron box, and dragged it down behind the desk with her.
A shadow appeared in the doorway.
It was not Ambrose.
A man in black tactical gear and a ballistic vest stepped into the room, sweeping a rifle across the shadows.
He spotted Rosalind crouching on the floor.
He lowered the muzzle straight at her face.
“Drop the box, girl.”
Rosalind’s eyes darted to the desk tray beside her hand.
Sitting on the felt pad was Pike’s heavy brass bookbinding bone, a solid piece of weighted metal used for smoothing thick leather.
Before the shooter could squeeze the trigger, Rosalind hurled the heavy brass weight with all the force of six years of buried rage.
The brass bar struck the gunman squarely between the eyes with a sickening crack.
The man stumbled backward, his shot discharging wildly into the ceiling plaster.
In that half-second of hesitation, Ambrose appeared behind him like a ghost.
A blade flashed under the red emergency lights.
Ambrose drove a combat knife cleanly between the man’s shoulder and neck, twisting once before lowering the lifeless body quietly to the floor.
Ambrose looked over the fallen shooter at Rosalind, who was still clutching the iron box with bloody, scraped knuckles.
He did not scold her for exposing herself.
Instead, he reached down, took the dead man’s encrypted tactical radio, and hit the speaker button.
A raspy voice came through the speaker with static.
“Alpha team, report.”
“Is the Halloway girl eliminated?”
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Rosalind’s eyes widened as she recognized the gravelly voice crackling through the radio.
It was Detective Thomas Vance—the lead investigator who had handed her the fake fire report six years ago.
