Chapter 6 - The Ghost in the GardenTwenty-nine minutes later, the western acreage of the Mercer estate was dead silent.
The afternoon sun was dipping below the tree line, casting long, jagged shadows across the thick underbrush and the manicured hedges.
Stationed near the rose garden, two elite guards—Vance and Miller—held their tactical stun-batons ready, their eyes scanning the thermal monitors strapped to their forearms.
“She’s coming from the creek side,” Miller whispered into his collar mic, his breath pluming slightly in the cooling autumn air. “Thermal’s picking up a heat signature near the old tool shed.”
“Got it,” Vance muttered, creeping stealthily toward the corner of the stone wall. “Let’s bag her quick. Mr. Mercer is watching from the office feed.”
They moved in tandem, two heavy shadows cutting across the grass.
They reached the tool shed. The door was slightly ajar.
Vance raised his baton, kicked the door wide open, and lunged inside—only to hit empty air. Hanging from a rafter inside the shed was a heated jacket rigged to a small battery pack, radiating a false thermal signature.
“It’s a decoy!” Vance barked.
Too late.
From the thick branches of an oak tree directly above them, a dark shape dropped like a stone from the canopy.
Claire landed silently between them, her powerful legs absorbing the impact without a sound. Before either man could raise a weapon, she swept her right leg in a wide, vicious arc, knocking Miller’s feet out from under him.
As Vance spun around to strike, Claire ducked beneath his swing, hooked her arm around his neck, and used his own momentum to flip him over her hip, sending him crashing hard into the gravel path.
She pinned Miller with her knee before he could hit the panic button, her hand hovering precisely one inch above his throat.
Silence descended on the garden once more.
From the second-floor office window, Adrian Mercer lowered his binoculars. He watched Claire stand up, brush a stray leaf off her black leggings, and look straight up at his window.
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She didn't wave. She just gave him a single, knowing nod.
Adrian set the binoculars down on his desk, feeling a strange, unfamiliar warmth spreading through his chest—a mixture of profound respect and an escalating, undeniable attraction that terrified him far more than any cartel boss ever could.
