Chapter 4 - Blood on the MountainThe tranquility of the winter garden shattered in an instant.
"Boss!" Viktor shouted, drawing his pistol and stepping in front of my desk. "We've got movement on the private road. Heavy vehicles. Not local police—private tactical units. Black ops gear."
"They didn't waste time," I muttered, wheeling myself rapidly toward the floor-to-ceiling monitors on the far wall.
On screen four, the camera overlooking the north security gate showed two matte-black armored SUVs ramming through the reinforced steel barrier as if it were made of paper. Armed men in unmarked tactical uniforms swarmed out, their suppressed rifles raised, neutralizing our outer guard post with terrifying efficiency.
"It's Director Park's private security detail," I realized, the pieces clicking together in my mind with brutal clarity. Park—the Minister of Maritime Affairs and one of my oldest political "partners" in Seoul. For years, he had taken our bribes to look the other way on dock shipments. But if Klaus's research involved experimental gene therapy tied to state-backed biological projects... Park wasn't just a corrupt politician. He was the man who had ordered the hit on Audrey's car.
And he knew Sarah had kept the prototype.
"Viktor, get Maria and the children down to the subterranean vault beneath the wine cellar," I ordered, my hands flying across the keyboard to lock down the internal blast doors.
"And you, Boss?" Viktor asked, his face grim. "You can't move fast enough to clear the upper levels if they breach the main hall."
I reached into the hidden compartment beneath my wheelchair seat, pulling out my customized, silver-plated Browning Hi-Power pistol—the one I hadn't fired since the night in Zurich. I checked the magazine. Full.
"I'm not running, Viktor," I said, a dark, dangerous smile touching my lips. My right leg gave another faint, localized throb, as if reminding me it was waking up just in time for a fight. "For eight years, they thought they put me in a cage. Tonight, I'm going to show them why they should have burned the body."
The heavy oak doors of the study shuddered under the impact of a breaching charge.
Boom.
The reinforced hinges groaned, and the door blasted inward, showering the room in splinters and white smoke.
Two tactical operatives stepped through the smoke, their assault rifles sweeping the room. They didn't expect the man in the wheelchair to be waiting dead center with a pistol leveled at their chests.
Crack. Crack.
Two suppressed shots. Two bodies hit the floor.
"Viktor, get the kids!" I shouted over the rising alarm klaxons.
More footsteps thundered down the hallway—dozens of them. The entire mansion was under siege. The glass walls of the winter garden began to spiderweb as sniper rounds impacted from the ridge outside.
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I spun my wheelchair around, navigating the narrow corridors of the upper floor with the lethal familiarity of a man who had designed every inch of this fortress. My mind was sharp, clear, and burning with a terrifying focus.
The paralysis hadn't beaten me. The grief hadn't broken me. They had only made me patient.
