Chapter 6 - The Poison in the Well
The mansion was an obstacle course of shadows.
Daniel moved with lethal silence through the gallery, his shoes gliding over Persian rugs. He had spent his childhood in this house; he knew every floorboard that creaked, every angle where moonlight hit the polished mahogany paneling.
Below him, in the central atrium, three men in dark tactical gear were moving in a tight sweep formation. Their weapon-mounted flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the grand portrait of Clara that hung above the fireplace.
Behind them walked Evelyn.
She had abandoned her deflated wedding gown. She now wore a dark field jacket, tactical trousers, and carried a compact submachine gun with chilling familiarity. Beside her stood a tall, silver-haired man with an aristocratic jawline and cold, reptilian eyes.
Julian Thorne.
“Find the boy,” Thorne’s voice echoed off the high marble walls, cultured, calm, and utterly devoid of mercy. “The boy holds the drive. If Clara left anything behind, it’s with him. Check the bedrooms. Shoot Daniel on sight—no negotiations.”
“Julian,” Evelyn said, her voice laced with venom. “Let me have the boy. He ruined six months of undercover work. He humiliated me in front of every contact we had in this state.”
“Your vanity is why this failed, Celia,” Thorne snapped without looking at her. “You were sloppy. A child with a pin dismantled an eighty-million-dollar acquisition. Be silent and find the safe.”
Daniel stood at the mezzanine landing, forty feet above them, hidden behind the heavy stone balustrade.
His heart was pounding, but his mind had settled into an icy, crystalline calm. The dizziness that had plagued him for weeks had been driven away by pure, undiluted survival instinct. He raised the Kimber .45, steadying his breathing, aiming directly at the central power junction box mounted on the atrium wall beneath the stairs.
*Bang!*
The shot rang out like a cannon in the enclosed space. The bullet shattered the emergency battery housing, showering the atrium in blinding blue sparks and plunging the ground floor into absolute, total darkness.
“Upstairs!” Thorne barked.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the hall as Thorne’s mercenaries opened fire on the mezzanine, chewing through the antique banisters and sending splinters of wood flying into the air.
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Daniel didn’t stay to be pinned down. He rolled to his left, dropped through the servant’s passage, and descended into the dark belly of the ground floor.
***
