Chapter 7 - The Breach
Upstairs on the third floor, the sudden wail of the security alarm jolted Hunter awake. In her adjoining suite, Leo whimpered, startled by the noise, and began to cry. Hunter snatched him up against her chest, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Mrs. Gable burst through her suite door, her face pale with panic.
"Hunter! Lock the reinforced doors! Code Red!" the older woman shouted over the blaring siren. "An intruder breached the eastern gate. Security is engaging!"
"An intruder?" Hunter’s blood ran cold. Memories of Tommy shoving her down the stairs flashed behind her eyes, followed by the terrifying thought of what a desperate, drug-addled criminal would do if he found her here. "How did he get past the guards?"
"He didn't come alone," Mrs. Gable said grimly, pulling heavy steel shutters down over the nursery windows with a loud mechanical clatter. "The Morettis. They used your ex as a scouting compass to find the blind spot in our perimeter."
Panic surged through Hunter, but maternal instinct instantly took over. She clutched Leo tightly, pressing his face into her shoulder. "Where is Lorenzo?"
"Basement command center," Mrs. Gable replied, handing Hunter a heavy-duty encrypted radio handset. "He’s already managing the sweep. Stay in this room. The nursery door is reinforced steel with biometric locks. No one gets in without Lorenzo's thumbprint or mine."
Down in the subterranean security level, monitors flickered with thermal imaging feeds. Lorenzo stood before the main console, his face carved from ice, watching three thermal dots breach the garden courtyard.
"Boss, they're heading for the rear service elevator shaft," Mateo reported, racking the slide of a tactical shotgun. "They think they can bypass the main foyer."
"Let them come to the second floor," Lorenzo said coldly, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. "Do not engage until they clear the stairwell. I want every single one of them alive long enough to regret breathing the same air as my son."
May you like
The heavy thud of boots echoed through the ventilation shafts. Gunfire—suppressed, sharp, and lethal—popped twice in the lower corridors, followed by a heavy silence.
Then, the biometric scanner outside the third-floor nursery beeped.
