Chapter 8 - THE SIEGE OF BLACKTHORNE HOUSE
Friday night arrived with the crushing weight of a winter storm.
The sky over the Hudson River was a bruised, heavy black, and freezing rain lashed against the reinforced glass of Blackthorne House like handfuls of gravel. Inside, all the lights on the lower floors had been extinguished, plunging the grand mansion into a tense, tactical darkness broken only by the dim red glow of emergency exit signs and the soft hum of surveillance monitors in the security wing.
I stood in the second-floor hallway, wearing a dark tactical turtleneck and heavy cargo pants provided by Dominic’s security team. My shoulder throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, but the painkillers had dulled the edge enough for me to move.
Downstairs, heavy armored vehicles could be heard rumbling up the winding private driveway through the storm.
They're here.
The first explosion rocked the front gates, a thunderous boom that rattled the ancestral portraits and sent a shower of sparks flying against the security cameras. Automatic gunfire erupted outside, the sharp, repetitive rat-a-tat-tat of submachine guns cutting through the howling wind as Dominic’s syndicate guards returned fire from fortified sniper positions along the perimeter wall.
"Vivienne."
I turned around. Dominic was walking down the hallway toward me, wearing a matte-black tactical vest over a dark sweater, a heavy Beretta pistol strapped securely to his thigh, and an assault rifle slung across his chest. He looked every inch the syndicate king ready to defend his castle.
"Caleb is in the underground panic room with Mrs. Bell," Dominic said, his voice remarkably calm amid the chaos downstairs. "He's safe."
"Good," I breathed, gripping the handle of the Glock 19 tucked into my waistband—a weapon Dominic had insisted I learn how to handle over the past forty-eight hours. "What's the tactical situation?"
"They breached the outer gates using an armored truck," Dominic said, his slate-gray eyes locking onto mine with fierce intensity. "Julian’s men are swarming the courtyard. They think they're walking into a slaughterhouse where they hold all the cards. They don't know that my men have already surrounded their flank."
A second explosion echoed from the west wing, followed by the sound of heavy glass shattering as an assault team tried to breach the side conservatory.
"Stay behind me," Dominic ordered, stepping forward.
"I am not hiding while you fight my war, Dominic," I snapped back, my eyes flashing with the defiance I had kept buried for eight years. "Julian Vance ruined my family, and he came into this house to finish me. This ends tonight, with or without your permission."
Dominic stared at me for a long, silent second. A slow, dangerous smile curved the corner of his lips—not a smile of amusement, but of grim, lethal approval.
May you like
"God help me, Vivienne," he muttered, shaking his head. "You really are a Mercer woman at heart."
Without another word, we moved together down the sweeping staircase into the darkened, smoke-filled foyer.
