PART 2: I Returned Home to Catch My Housekeeper Manipulating My Daughters—Instead, I Discovered Why Someone Wanted Her Gone 3-038

I dove behind a heavy marble pedestal as the suppressed rounds shattered the sculpture above me, sending sharp fragments of stone raining down. I returned fire, two quick shots that forced Victoria to leap behind a heavy oak pillar near the conservatory entrance.

The thunderous cracks of my gun echoed off the high ceilings of the foyer. I knew I couldn't engage in a drawn-out firefight in my own home—not while Clara and the girls were upstairs. I needed to eliminate the threat quickly.

"You're out of your depth, Ethan!" Victoria called out from behind the pillar, her voice echoing in the darkness. "I have four men securing the perimeter outside! Your security team has been neutralized! Hand over the flash drive with Vance's server logs, and I might consider letting your children live!"

"You're lying," I yelled back, checking my remaining ammunition. "If you had total control of this house, you wouldn't be talking to me."

I pulled a tactical flash grenade from my belt—a precautionary piece of equipment Mateo had left with me after the warehouse raid—pulled the pin, and cooked it for one second before rolling it across the polished marble floor toward her position.

Victoria caught the metallic clatter on the floor. "What—"

BOOM!

A blinding flash of white light and a concussive shockwave ripped through the foyer. Victoria let out a sharp cry of disorientation as the flashbang detonated right at her feet, dropping her weapon to the floor.

I sprinted from behind my cover, tackling her body to the ground before she could recover her senses. We crashed against the base of the staircase. Victoria was a trained operative; despite being half-blinded by the flash, she delivered a brutal kick to my chest, throwing me backward. I landed hard on the floor, losing my grip on my firearm as it slid across the marble.

Victoria scrambled on her hands and knees toward her dropped gun, her vision returning. "You miserable—"

Before her fingers could touch the metal frame, a heavy bronze statue of a horse slammed directly into the side of her head with crushing force.

Victoria collapsed onto her side with a heavy groan, out cold.

Standing over her, gasping for breath and holding the heavy bronze statue with trembling hands, was Clara.

I stared at her in utter shock. She was supposed to be in the panic room upstairs. Her hair was messy, her face pale, but her eyes burned with an absolute, protective fury I had never seen in anyone before.

"Clara..." I gasped, pushing myself up from the floor. "I told you to stay with the girls!"

"The panic room door was locked from the inside," Clara panted, dropping the bloody statue to the floor. "Sophie and Avery are safe inside. I wasn't going to sit in a metal box while someone tried to kill you in your own hallway."

I walked over to her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her into a fierce, desperate embrace. She wrapped her arms around my neck, trembling against my chest as the adrenaline began to fade.

"You crazy, brilliant woman," I whispered into her hair, kissing the side of her forehead. "You just saved my life."

"We save each other," she whispered back, resting her head against my shoulder. "That's how this works now."

Outside, heavy headlights illuminated the driveway as three tactical police vans and Mateo’s black SUV pulled up to the front entrance with sirens blaring. The perimeter was secured, the remaining mercenaries outside were rounded up, and Victoria Sterling was handcuffed and hauled away in heavy iron restraints.

Mateo burst through the front doors, taking in the scene of the destroyed foyer, the unconscious operative, and Clara standing beside me.