Chapter 4 - The Siege of the EstateThe river compound was a trap.
By the time my strike team breached the outer perimeter of Vasquez’s river facility at 12:30 AM, we found it completely deserted. The security lights were left on, and dummy vehicles were parked in the yard to make it look occupied from satellite imagery.
"Boss!" Marcus yelled over the tactical comms, his voice distorted by static. "It's empty! There’s nobody here!"
A cold dread—sharper and more brutal than any bullet—pierced through my chest.
"The estate," I whispered into my radio. "It was a feint. ALL UNITS, FALL BACK TO THE ESTATE NOW!"
We scrambled back into the armored SUVs, tires screaming against the wet asphalt as we tore through the city streets at ninety miles an hour. I pressed my radio button frantically, trying to reach Vince at the house.
"Vince! Come in! Vince!"
Nothing but static.
"Perimeter Team Alpha! Report!"
Silence.
I slammed my fist against the dashboard, cracking the plastic trim. "Faster, Marcus! Drive faster!"
Twenty minutes earlier, at the estate.
The power grid for the entire northern sector of the estate had been cut cleanly at 12:10 AM.
The backup generators kicked in four seconds later, but four seconds in a tactical assault is an eternity. By the time the perimeter floodlights flickered back on, Vasquez's elite mercenaries—ten men wearing night-vision gear and carrying silenced submachine guns—had already scaled the eastern wall.
Vince fought like a demon. He took down three men in the courtyard before a bullet caught him in the thigh, forcing him back into the kitchen entry.
"Get Lady Wren to the panic room!" Vince screamed into his radio as he returned fire down the hallway, drywall splintering around him. "They’re inside the house!"
In the upstairs hallway, Mrs. Gable, the old housekeeper, grabbed Wren by the hand and tried to pull her toward the hidden reinforced door behind the library bookshelf.
Wren resisted. She pulled back with all her tiny weight, pointing frantically toward the bottom of the stairs.
"No, child! We have to go!" Mrs. Gable sobbed, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. "The security men will handle it!"
Downstairs, heavy boots echoed against the marble.
"Find the girl!" a harsh, raspy voice shouted. It was Hector Vasquez himself. "Find Mercer's daughter! We take her, and Mercer surrenders the entire city by sunrise! And if you see that damn dog, put a bullet in its head!"
A mercenary kicked open the double doors leading into the main foyer.
Suddenly, a streak of white and red shadow launched itself from the top of the grand staircase.
Ghost didn't bark. He didn't warn them. He moved with the terrifying speed of a creature that had been forged in the dark fires of hatred and survival.
He collided with the lead mercenary at full speed, his massive jaws locking onto the man's tactical vest and tearing him down to the floor. The gun went off, bullets wilding into the ceiling plaster as the man screamed in agony.
"Shoot it! Shoot the dog!" Vasquez roared from the rear.
Another mercenary raised his rifle, but Ghost was already moving. He let go of the first man and lunged across the slick tile, biting clean through the second soldier's wrist, forcing him to drop his weapon.
Upstairs, Wren broke free from Mrs. Gable's grip.
"Wren! No!" the housekeeper screamed.
Wren ran to the balcony railing, looking down at the chaos in her home. She saw Ghost fighting three men at once, taking a blow from a rifle butt across his scarred ribs, yelping in pain but refusing to give an inch of ground at the base of the stairs.
He was holding the staircase. He was keeping them away from her.
A third mercenary stepped around the pile of groaning men, raised his sidearm, and aimed directly at Ghost’s head while the dog was pinned under a heavy wooden table that had overturned during the struggle.
"Die, you mangy mutt," the man growled.
Wren watched the barrel of the gun align with Ghost's head—the same head that had rested on her lap every night, the same ears she had brushed, the only friend who had understood her silence.
Something inside Wren broke. The dark, frozen dam that had locked her voice away for two horrific years—since the night she watched her mother die—shattered into a thousand pieces under the terrifying pressure of love and desperation.
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Wren drew a massive breath into her tiny lungs, leaned over the mahogany banister, and screamed with everything she possessed:
"GHOST! MOVE!"
