Chapter 8 - The Price of VengeanceThe courtyard of the estate had transformed into a sterile, terrifying landscape under the glare of the security floodlights. I held the encrypted satellite phone to my ear, listening to Marcus Vance’s smug laughter echo across the line.
"You're too late, Vincent," Marcus sneered, his voice dripping with triumphant venom. "My men are already cutting through the safe room door with thermal charges. By the time the police or your pathetic little guards realize what's happening, we'll be halfway to international airspace."
I didn't waste a single breath arguing with him. I grabbed Clara by the shoulders, looking straight into her steady, unblinking eyes.
"Marcus Vance," I told her, my voice dropping into a lethal register. "He's outside in the driveway convoy, and his men are trying to blow the panic room door right now."
Clara’s jaw tightened into a hard, unyielding line. She didn't cower or scream. With calm precision, she reached down to her belt, unholstering a heavy-duty tactical taser—a relic from her days working late-night emergency shifts in Boston—and handed it to me while keeping a heavy iron fireplace poker for herself.
"The panic room has an emergency ventilation chute leading straight down to the wine cellar," Clara said rapidly. "It's narrow, but a child can fit through it if the internal latch is released from the master utility panel."
"Where is the manual release?"
"Inside the study's utility closet. Follow me!"
We sprinted back through the master suite as a muffled, concussive thud shook the mansion's foundation, followed by the sickening sound of metal buckling under a thermal explosive charge. They were breaking through the safe room door.
I threw open the utility closet door, dropping to my knees and tearing away the wooden floor panels to reveal the dark, vertical ventilation shaft.
Clara was already punching the digital override code into the secondary wall panel connected to the safe room intercom.
"Matthew! Matthew, can you hear me?!" she shouted into the mic.
A faint, terrified voice crackled back through the speaker. "Clara! They're cutting through the door!"
"Listen to me, buddy," Clara said, her voice steady, filled with absolute authority and fierce love. "You need to crawl into the back corner of the closet. There's a small metal hatch near the floor. Open it and slide down the chute. Your dad is waiting at the bottom. Can you do that for me?"
"I... I can't walk, Clara," Matthew sobbed through the speaker.
"You don't need to walk, Matthew! You just need to slide! Trust me!"
A split second later, the heavy sound of steel crashing inward echoed through the intercom.
“Found him!” a gruff voice yelled over the audio feed.
"Now, Matthew! Go!" Clara screamed.
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A loud clatter echoed from inside the safe room, followed by a breathless gasp. Through the open ventilation shaft beneath us, a small hand reached out of the darkness.
I dove forward, grabbing Matthew’s arm and hauling him out of the chute just as the heavy thud of combat boots echoed from the master study doorway behind us.
