Chapter 5 - Into the Ash
""BREACH CHARGE!"" Cole screamed, grabbing Tristan by the scruff of his ballistic vest and throwing both of them over the stone balustrade into the lower garden.
The detonation didn't produce a massive fireball; it was a focused thermite-kinetic blast designed to collapse structural load-bearing pillars. The entire east wing of Blackwood Manor groaned as tons of slate and timber sheared off and tumbled down the slope into the dark ravines below.
Cole landed hard on the wet mulch, his ears ringing with high-pitched agony. Dirt and smoking debris rained down around them. He shook his head, spitting mud, and checked Tristan. Tristan was bleeding from a shrapnel cut on his cheek, but he was already pushing himself up, his eyes scanning the tree line.
""You good?"" Cole wheezed.
""Never better,"" Tristan spat, clearing mud from his rifle chamber. ""The east wing is gone. The library collapsed right over the wine cellar entrance.""
Cole's heart plummeted. ""Elena. Leo.""
They sprinted through the smoking ruins of the side terrace. Where the grand fireplace once stood was now a twisted heap of charred beams and shattered granite. Cole dropped to his knees, clawing at the burning rubble with his bare hands, tearing his palms against hot stone.
""LEO! ELENA!"" Cole yelled into the void.
Beneath the debris, a muffled metallic tapping responded. Three taps. Pause. Two taps.
The Montgomery family distress code.
""They're alive,"" Tristan breathed, hauling a scorched timber beam aside with a grunt of immense effort. ""They made it past the threshold before the ceiling dropped.""
Cole reached down into the gap, gripping the edge of an iron hatch that had been shielded by the stone archway. He strained, every tendon in his neck bulging, until the warped iron gave way with a shriek of bending metal.
Leo’s pale face appeared through the smoke, coughing violently. Behind him, Elena was curled in the fetal position, covered in stone dust but breathing.
""We need to move,"" Leo gasped, handing up a waterproof tactical case. ""I pulled the girl's full dossier before the server melted. She's not just our half-sister, Cole. She’s the sole surviving witness to the fire that killed Julian Vance’s grandfather twenty years ago. The fire our father was blamed for.""
Elena crawled out into the cold rain, trembling. ""Julian lied to me from the day we met. He only courted me to find her.""
""Where is she, Leo?"" Cole asked, hauling his brother up onto the lawn.
May you like
Leo adjusted his cracked glasses, looking out toward the dark horizon where the storm clouds gathered over the Pacific.
""She’s in Seattle,"" Leo said. ""Living under the name Clara Stone. Working as a dockmaster at the commercial port. And according to the encrypted comms I intercepted five minutes ago... Julian Vance’s kill squad is already on a private jet heading north.""
