Chapter 8 - THE ARRIVAL AT THE GATES
The digital display on the security console flashed a crisp, high-definition feed of the estate’s lower entrance.
Through the lens of the infrared night-vision camera, I watched a sleek, late-model luxury sedan idling on the wet asphalt outside the towering wrought-iron gates. The hazard lights blinked rhythmically against the falling mountain snow.
Then, the driver's door opened, and Marcus stepped out.
Even through a grainy camera feed, his posture radiated arrogance and unbridled fury. He slammed the car door shut, adjusted his expensive wool overcoat, and marched directly up to the gate’s intercom pillar, pressing the call button with aggressive persistence.
My breath hitched in my throat. Seeing him on that screen, right outside the sanctuary Luca had built, felt like a nightmare bleeding into reality.
"He found us," I whispered, my hands trembling as I gripped the edge of the console. "Luca, how did he find us up here? This road isn't even on most public maps."
"He didn't track the house, Vanessa," Luca said calmly, his eyes locked on the monitor with cold detachment. "He tracked the credit card transaction from the coffee shop where you stopped before the mall. It took his private investigators a few hours to piece the toll booth cameras together, but desperation makes amateurs predictable."
"What are we going to do?"
"Nothing," Luca replied smoothly. "We are going to watch."
On the screen, the intercom speaker crackled to life. Marcus’s voice boomed across the mountain stillness, amplified by the estate's security system.
“Open this gate right now!” Marcus shouted, his voice dripping with venom and feigned righteousness. “I know my wife and my daughter are in there! You are harboring a fugitive, and if you don't open this gate in thirty seconds, I will have every local law enforcement agency and federal marshal within fifty miles swarming this property!”
I flinched at the word wife. The sheer audacity of it made me sick to my stomach.
"He's bluffing," I said, looking up at Luca. "He doesn't have federal marshals. He has local police contacts he plays golf with on weekends."
"He's not just bluffing, Vanessa," Luca said, a cold, dangerous smile touching his lips. "He's walking right into a trap he doesn't even know exists."
Luca picked up a secure handset and pressed a single button.
"Miller," Luca said into the comms unit. "Let him in."
I gasped. "Luca, no! If he gets onto the property—"
"Let him in," Luca repeated, his gaze locking onto mine with absolute reassurance. "Let him see what happens when a man tries to claim something that doesn't belong to him inside my house."
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On the monitor, the towering iron gates hissed as the hydraulic locks disengaged, slowly parting to reveal the winding drive leading up to the main estate.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He climbed back into his luxury sedan, revved the engine with an aggressive roar, and sped up the mountain drive toward the main courtyard, his headlights cutting through the swirling snow like angry daggers.
