Chapter 3 - The Crimson Escape
Julian did not hesitate. Throwing himself sideways, he absorbed the impact on his shoulder as three silenced rounds ripped through the mahogany wood where Lily had been sheltered an instant prior.
"Marcus! Suppress them!" Julian roared.
From the northern corridor, Julian’s head of private security, Marcus, answered with a controlled barrage from his submachine gun. The firefight shattered the gilded columns, sending pulverized plaster and marble shrapnel into the air. Two of the masked assassins crumpled under Marcus’s precision fire, but the third fell back, deploying a smoke canister that billowed thick, sulfurous gray fog through the red-lit grand hall.
"Go, boss! Service tunnel beneath the kitchens!" Marcus yelled through his tactical headset, returning fire as another squad of hostiles breached the eastern terrace windows.
Julian carried Lily with one arm, his other pulling a custom 9mm from a concealed holster within his tailored coat. Lily kept her eyes squeezed shut, her small hands clutching his collar so tightly her knuckles were translucent.
He vaulted over a fallen buffet display and kicked through the swinging doors into the commercial kitchen. The kitchen staff had already fled; water leaked from an overturned stainless-steel prep table, hissing against hot burners.
"Julian," a voice echoed through the industrial vents overhead. It wasn't an assassin's battle cry; it was amplified through the estate's central public address system. The voice was smooth, cultured, and chillingly familiar.
Julian froze near the walk-in freezer door, his thumb resting on the safety of his weapon.
"Did you really believe you could bury the past beneath bespoke suits and philanthropy?" the voice drawled. "The girl’s mother died for that brooch, Julian. She gave it to your brother, who gave it to you. And now, you let a child wear a vault key worth forty billion dollars around a room full of jackals."
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Julian’s blood turned to liquid nitrogen. He looked down at the diamond dagger brooch still gripped tightly in his palm.
Suddenly, the steel service elevator behind him chimed, its doors sliding open. Inside stood Senator Robert Ashford, but he was no longer trembling. He held a detonator in his hand.
