Chapter 7 - Standing Her Ground
For twenty agonizing minutes, the heavy steel door muffled the sound of footsteps, shouting, and heavy impacts echoing from the library above. Claire kept her arm clamped tightly around Lily while holding Noah and Caleb's hands, using her body to block the entrance.
Suddenly, a loud metallic scrape vibrated through the frame of the panic room door. Someone was on the outside, attempting to override the digital keypad with an electronic bypass tool.
Noah's eyes widened in terror. "That's not the security code," he whispered. "Someone else is out there."
Claire didn't freeze. Her survival instincts, forged through years of protecting her daughter in the toughest corners of New York, kicked into high gear. She surveyed the room in a split second, spotted a heavy iron fireplace poker leaning against the wall, and grabbed it with both hands.
"Stay behind me, all of you. Do not move," she ordered in a tone that allowed no argument.
The heavy steel door unlocked with a loud click and slowly swung open. A tall, tactical-vest-clad intruder stepped through the threshold, holding a suppressed pistol, his face covered by a black balaclava. He didn't expect a helpless nanny; he expected terrified children.
Before the man could raise his weapon, Claire stepped forward with all the strength in her body and swung the heavy iron poker like a baseball bat.
CRACK.
The solid iron hit the man squarely across the side of his tactical helmet, sending him stumbling back against the doorframe. Before he could recover, Claire drove her foot hard into his chest, kicking him backward out of the doorway onto the hardwood floor of the library. She slammed the heavy steel door shut, locked the manual deadbolt from the inside, and stood guarding the lock, her knuckles white around the bloody iron rod.
Two minutes later, the door handle rattled again. A familiar code was punched into the keypad.
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The door swung open, revealing Adrian. His suit jacket was gone, his dark hair disheveled, and his gun held at his side. He froze, his eyes widening in shock as he looked at the unconscious intruder lying in the library hall, then up at Claire, who stood defiantly in front of four unharmed, wildly cheering children, still holding the bent iron poker.
Adrian dropped his weapon into its holster, stepped into the doorway, and pulled Claire directly into his arms, squeezing her so tightly she could barely breathe. "You're safe," he breathed against her neck, his voice trembling with an emotion no rival gang had ever managed to evoke in him. "You kept them safe."
