Chapter 13 - The Mother's Stand
A muffled detonation rattled the steel door frame. The lights inside the panic room flickered, died, and were replaced by the blood-red glow of the secondary emergency lamps.
Outside in the cellar corridor, the hiss of a thermal cutting lance began chewing through the upper hinge of the vault door. Sparks showered beneath the bottom seal like angry orange hornets.
"Mommy!" Leo cried out, scrambling off the cot.
"Behind the supply chest, Leo! Now!" Clara commanded, her voice dropping into an authoritative register she hadn't used since the worst days following Julian's death.
Leo scrambled behind the heavy steel crate, curling into a tight ball with his hands over his ears.
Clara took up position behind the heavy steel desk bolted to the floor, resting the barrel of the pistol on the edge, sighting directly at the door seam. Her heart was hammering, but her vision had narrowed to a razor-sharp point. She remembered the target range Julian had taken her to once, years ago, laughing about how every city girl needed to know how to drop a mugger. She had hated the noise back then. She didn't hate it now.
Above them, on the ground floor, Adrian Hale was tearing through Jimmy Cole’s outer perimeter like an unleashed phantom.
Adrian had scavenged an assault rifle from a fallen mercenary. Moving through the smoke-filled east wing, he engaged three hostiles in the library, eliminating them with rapid, double-tap bursts before slipping through a secret corridor behind the bookstacks. His ears were ringing, his left arm was bleeding from a shrapnel graze, but his focus was single-minded: Clara and Leo.
He hit the stairwell leading to the basement just as Jimmy Cole’s secondary squad finished setting the final charge on the bunker hinge.
"Adrian!" Marcus's voice crackled weakly over the short-range comms. "Two more transports pulling up... driveway... you gotta get them out through the storm drain..."
"Stay down, Marcus," Adrian whispered into his throat mic. "I'm clearing the basement."
Down below, the heavy hinge of the bunker door gave way with an ear-splitting crack. The massive steel slab tilted forward, slamming down onto the concrete floor with a concussive boom that sent dust billowing into the panic room.
A mercenary in tactical gear tossed a flashbang grenade toward the threshold.
Clara didn't wait. The instant his black-gloved hand cleared the frame, she pulled the trigger.
*BANG! BANG! BANG!*
The shots echoed deafeningly in the enclosed space. Two rounds struck the door jamb; the third punched straight through the mercenary’s wrist. The flashbang dropped from his limp fingers, rolling back into the corridor.
*BOOM!*
The mercenary screamed as the disorienting blast went off in his face right in the hallway.
"Bitch has a gun!" another voice shouted from the corridor.
Before the second mercenary could lean around the frame to spray the room with an Uzi, a shadow materialized behind him in the cellar gloom.
A combat blade flashed in the crimson light. The mercenary collapsed without making a sound.
Adrian stepped into the ruined doorway of the panic room, silhouetted against the basement smoke. His clothes were shredded, his knuckles split and dripping red, his face coated in black soot.
Clara lowered her weapon, her chest heaving as tears finally spilled down her cheeks. "Adrian..."
Adrian lowered his rifle, stepping quickly over the debris. He didn't say a word. He reached Clara's side, dropped to one knee, and pulled both her and Leo into his broad, iron-clad chest. For five heartbeats, amidst the smell of cordite and the wail of sirens, Adrian held them as if they were the only living souls left on earth.
"I promised you," Adrian murmured, his voice thick with raw emotion, his lips brushing Clara's temple. "I told you no one touches you while I live."
May you like
"Adrian, Jimmy Cole..." Clara choked out, looking into his bruised face. "He said... he said Leo is Julian's kid. He said there's a bounty on my son!"
Adrian's eyes darkened into black ice. "I know. And that's why Jimmy Cole cannot leave this mountain alive."
