Chapter 15 - The Queen of Chicago
Z
The panic room was buried deep beneath the foundation of the estate, encased in three feet of reinforced concrete and solid steel. It was impenetrable from the outside, a titanium womb designed to survive a nuclear blast. But as I locked the massive vault door behind me, sealing Ava and myself in the sterile, brightly lit space, I realized the terrifying flaw in our design. We were safe from The Hound. But we were also trapped. And Reed was alone up there.
I set Ava down on the small cot in the corner, wrapping a blanket around her trembling shoulders. "Stay here, baby. Don't make a sound," I whispered, kissing her forehead.
I turned to the bank of security monitors on the wall. They were offline, destroyed by the jammer. I paced the small room like a caged tiger. Five minutes passed. Ten. Every second felt like an hour. Was Reed dead? Had The Hound butchered his way through the rest of the guards?
I looked at the heavy steel door. If Reed was dead, The Hound would eventually find the vault. He couldn't get in, but he could bury us alive, seal the ventilation shafts, and wait for us to suffocate. I couldn't cower in a box while the man who had protected me for five years bled to death in the hallway. I couldn't let Alexei Volkov win.
I opened the weapons locker in the panic room. It was stocked for a war. I ignored the assault rifles. I wanted something brutal. Something personal. I pulled out a heavy, tactical tomahawk and a high-caliber hand cannon.
"Mommy, where are you going?" Ava cried, sensing my shift in demeanor.
"I'm going to finish this," I said, my voice cold, devoid of the motherly warmth she knew. I punched the release code into the keypad. The heavy steel door hissed, unlocking.
I stepped out of the panic room into the dark, silent basement. The air was thick with smoke and the metallic stench of blood. I moved cautiously, the hand cannon raised, the tomahawk gripped tightly in my left hand. I climbed the stairs to the main floor. The devastation was absolute. The mansion was a slaughterhouse. Bodies of my guards littered the marble floors.
I found Reed in the grand foyer. He was on his knees, covered in blood, his shotgun empty on the floor beside him. The Hound stood over him, breathing heavily, a massive wound in his side leaking dark blood onto the pristine white tiles. The assassin raised his curved blade, preparing to execute the King of Chicago.
"Hey!" I screamed, stepping into the foyer, aiming the hand cannon.
The Hound paused, turning his head slowly toward me. A chilling smile cracked his stoic face. He had expected me to hide. He had underestimated the waitress.
He lunged at me, ignoring Reed, moving with that same terrifying, supernatural speed despite his wounds. I didn't try to dodge. I didn't try to run. I stood my ground, raised the massive gun, and pulled the trigger.
The recoil nearly broke my wrist. The bullet caught The Hound squarely in the chest, the kinetic force stopping his momentum instantly. He staggered, looking down at the massive hole in his torso with a look of profound confusion.
But he didn't fall. Driven by sheer, psychotic willpower, he let out a guttural roar and swung the blade at my head. I ducked beneath the arc of the knife, stepping inside his guard. With all the rage, fear, and trauma of the last five years fueling my muscles, I drove the tactical tomahawk upward, burying the heavy steel blade deep into the side of his neck.
Blood sprayed in a crimson arc. The Hound’s eyes widened in shock, the light instantly vanishing from them. He collapsed to the marble floor, a dead weight, the mythic assassin slain by a mother protecting her child.
I stood over his body, gasping for air, the tomahawk dripping in my hand. I looked up at Reed, who was leaning against the wall, staring at me with a mixture of absolute awe and terror.
"It's over," Reed rasped, clutching his bleeding side.
"No," I said, my voice echoing in the bloody foyer. I looked at the dead assassin, then at the destruction of our home. Dante was dead. The Hound was dead. But Alexei Volkov was still breathing in Moscow. "It's not over. But they are done hunting us."
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I walked over to the landline on the front desk, wiping the blood from my hands on my ruined pants. I picked up the receiver, waiting for the dial tone to return as the backup generators finally kicked in.
I was Sarah Callaway. I had walked into a restaurant with $11.70, and I had emerged as the most dangerous woman in the underworld. The Volkovs wanted a war of bloodlines. I was going to give them one. I dialed the international code for Moscow, ready to tell Alexei Volkov that the Queen of Chicago was coming for his throne.
