Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF BLOOD
Z
"Get up," I ordered, my voice dropping an octave into a cold, clinical tone. The panic that had threatened to drown me just moments ago was instantly replaced by an icy, calculated survival instinct.
"Eleanor, who is that?" Margaret whimpered, pushing herself up from the floor, clutching Arthur’s arm so hard her knuckles turned white. "Is that... is that them?"
"Who else would be driving a fleet of armored SUVs up a closed mountain pass in a Level 5 blizzard?" I said, walking briskly toward the reception desk. I pulled open the bottom drawer, sliding aside stacks of promotional brochures and keys to the guest suites, until my fingers wrapped around the cold, textured grip of a Glock 19. I pulled it out, checked the magazine, slapped it back into the well, and racked the slide with a sharp, lethal clack.
Arthur gasped, stepping back. "Where did you get that?!"
"I spent five years alone on a mountain with wolves, bears, and squatters, Arthur. Did you think I was defending a ten-million-dollar property with a broom?" I tucked the pistol into the waistband of my tactical pants and grabbed a heavy emergency medical kit from under the counter. I threw it at Arthur’s chest; he caught it clumsily against his ribs. "Take Julian to the old wine cellar behind the kitchen. It’s built into the solid bedrock of the mountain. Three-foot-thick stone walls, reinforced iron door. No windows."
"The cellar?" Julian groaned from the floor, his face pale as ash. "El, I can barely walk—"
"Then crawl!" I barked, grabbing him by the jacket and dragging him to his feet. He screamed in pain as his weight pressed on his injured side, but I didn't care. "If they catch you in this hall, they will shoot you, they will shoot Mom, they will shoot Dad, and then they will burn my resort to the ground to cover the evidence. Move your ass!"
Arthur, finally realizing the sheer lethality of the situation he had dragged into my life, grabbed Julian’s uninjured arm, throwing it over his shoulder. Together, cursing and stumbling, they began half-carrying, half-dragging Julian through the archway toward the commercial kitchen. Margaret hovered behind them, hyperventilating, her eyes wide with terror.
"Margaret, go with them and lock the door from the inside," I instructed, pointing the flashlight down the dark corridor. "Do not open it for anyone. Not even me, unless I give you the code word."
"What code word?" she wept.
"Blackwood," I said firmly. "If I don't say 'Blackwood' through the door speaker, you keep that iron bolt thrown. Do you understand me?"
She nodded frantically, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, and ran after her husband and favored son.
I was left standing alone in the pitch-black, freezing foyer.
The backup generator in the sub-basement should have kicked in automatically within ten seconds of the primary power grid failing. The fact that it hadn't meant one of two things: either the heavy ice had downed the main mountain line and tripped the local breaker, or Vance’s men had already reached the exterior power vault on the south perimeter and cut the lines manually.
Option two, I thought grimly. They know what they’re doing.
I hurried behind the reception desk to the primary security console, which was running on its own dedicated battery backup. The screen flickered, displaying the feed from Camera 2—the courtyard.
The three heavy black SUVs had brought themselves to a halt in a semi-circle around the ruined Ford transit van. Their engines didn't turn off; exhaust plumed into the freezing air like thick white smoke.
The doors opened simultaneously. Six men stepped out into the swirling snow. They weren't wearing ski masks or ragged winter gear. They wore sleek, dark tactical parkas, insulated gloves, and heavy boots. Two of them carried short-barreled automatic carbines held at high-ready positions.
From the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, a man stepped out slowly. He didn't rush. He didn't look bothered by the sub-zero temperatures or the wind that was whipping snow into horizontal sheets. He wore a long, tailored charcoal trench coat with a dark cashmere scarf. He reached into his coat, pulled out a leather glove, and pulled it tightly over his left hand.
Dominic Vance.
I watched him on the grainy, blue-tinted screen. He looked up, his gaze locking directly with Camera 2 mounted beneath the timber eaves. He didn't smile. He simply raised a hand and pointed a finger at the lens.
Crack.
The screen went to static as one of his men shot the camera out.
My heart smashed against my ribs like a trapped bird. They weren't here to negotiate. They were here to liquidate an asset and erase everyone connected to it.
I grabbed the flashlight, cut the beam off to avoid giving away my position through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and melted into the shadows of the grand hall.
I knew every inch of the Obsidian Abbey. I knew which floorboards creaked in the north wing. I knew which stone archways muffled sound and which ones amplified it. I had spent five years memorizing the anatomy of this structure. They had weapons and numbers, but I had the mountain, and I had the layout.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound of heavy tactical boots echoed from the front porch. Then, a sharp, heavy metallic thump as they used a hydraulic breacher against the main entrance double doors.
The titanium deadbolts I had installed held for a second, the heavy oak groaning under the pressure. But another blast from a sledgehammer or a breach charge splintered the central frame with an explosion of wood fragments and stone dust.
The cold air rushed into the foyer, accompanied by the crunch of boots on broken glass and slate.
"Clear left!" a voice barked inside the building—cold, disciplined, professional.
"Clear right! Hallway is clear!" another voice responded.
Footsteps moved into the foyer. I was crouching behind the massive three-sided stone fireplace in the center of the grand hall, forty feet away, wrapped in complete darkness. I held my breath, resting my cheek against the cold granite, my hands gripping the Glock 19 with a white-knuckled hold.
"Boss, main floor is clear," a voice called out. "Power's down. Hitting the backup lights."
A beam of high-intensity white light swept across the grand hall, illuminating the soaring timber rafters, the plush velvet sofas, and the puddle of blood Julian had left on the wall.
The light stopped on the bloodstain.
"They're here," the voice said.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps walked into the room. Dominic Vance’s voice echoed off the high ceilings—smooth, cultured, terrifyingly calm, like a professor giving a lecture on archaelogy.
"Julian," Vance called out, his tone almost pleasant. "I know you're in here, son. You really shouldn't have driven up Blackwood Peak in this weather. The roads are terrible. And breaking your father's house rules by dragging your poor parents into this... well, it shows a severe lack of character."
Silence answered him, save for the howling wind whipping through the destroyed front entrance.
"I know you think this place is a fortress," Vance continued, his boots crunching slowly across the slate as he approached the fireplace. "A nice, quiet resort. A place to hide behind your sister's skirt. But you see, Julian, money doesn't care about mountain passes. And I don't leave four million dollars sitting in the snow."
Vance stopped right on the other side of the stone fireplace. He was less than three feet away from me. I could smell his cologne—expensive sandalwood mixed with the sharp smell of cold leather.
"Search the ground floor," Vance instructed his men quietly. "Check every room, every closet, every utility access. If you find the parents, hold them. If you find Julian... break his other leg and bring him to me. And if you find the sister..." He paused, taking a slow breath. "Try not to kill her immediately. She owns the deed to this land. We'll need her signature before we burn the place down."
My teeth slammed together so hard my jaw ached. Sign the deed? Over my dead body.
"Boss," one of the men called from near the reception desk. "Found a trail. Wet footprints and drag marks heading back toward the commercial kitchen."
"Lead the way, Marcus," Vance said softly.
I heard the footsteps begin to retreat, moving down the long slate corridor toward the kitchen—straight toward the wine cellar where my family was huddled in the dark.
I had a choice.
I could stay hidden in the shadows, wait for them to breach the cellar, let them take Julian and my parents, and hope to escape out the secondary staff exit into the storm to survive. It was logical. My family had brought this death sentence upon themselves. They had bled me dry for thirty-two years, and now they had brought a pack of wolves to my doorstep. I owed them nothing.
Nothing.
My grip on the gun tightened.
I thought of the five years I spent in this hall. I thought of the blood under my fingernails, the nights I almost froze to death restoring the roof, the pride I felt looking at the stone pillars I had rebuilt with my own hands.
If Vance took this place, he wouldn't just kill my family. He would erase me. He would destroy the only thing that proved I existed outside of their toxic shadow.
May you like
"Not in my house," I whispered to the darkness.
I stepped out from behind the stone fireplace, raised the Glock 19 with both hands, aligned the tritium night sights with the back of the rearmost mercenary's head, and squeezed the trigger.
