Chapter 5 - Blind Reckoning
Julian reacted on pure instinct. He kicked the grenade under the heavy oak armoire and threw his entire body over Claire, shielding her ears and neck with his arms.
The explosion shook the floorboards, tearing the heavy wardrobe into burning kindling and blowing out every remaining pane of glass in the room. The concussive shockwave slammed Julian's head against the wall, ringing through his skull like a struck bronze bell. Acrid white smoke instantly filled the room, blinding and suffocating.
Through the ringing in his ears, Julian heard the heavy crunch of combat boots stepping over the window frame from the exterior balcony.
He didn't stand. Keeping low beneath the rising smoke, Julian gripped his pistol and fired two shots through the haze toward the silhouette entering through the window. A man grunted, staggering backward onto the balcony rail.
Julian scrambled forward, grabbing the fallen man’s carbine before the mercenary could recover, sweeping the butt of the weapon across the intruder’s chin. The man slumped over the railing, tumbling two stories into the terrace fountain below.
Julian turned back to Claire. The display on her wrist read: twenty-two seconds. The device was beeping continuously now, a sharp, flatlining warning tone.
""Julian... it's armed,"" Claire choked out, tears finally breaking past her exhaustion. ""Get away. Take Lily and run.""
""Never,"" Julian snarled.
He lunged for the black box in the floorboards. Beside it, the blue frequency jammer had an auxiliary port with a manual bypass switch. Marcus hadn't left bait—he had left an override station for himself to deactivate the dead-man switch once he recovered the ledger.
With hands steady as stone despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins, Julian grabbed the jumper lead from the jammer and jammed it directly into the port on Claire's wristband.
The timer flashed: 00:03... 00:02...
A mechanical click snapped inside the carbon fiber housing. The countdown froze. The red LED blinked green once, and the magnetic clamp popped open, falling harmlessly onto the wooden floor.
Claire collapsed against his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. Julian held her tightly, the barrel of the carbine still trained on the smoking doorway.
May you like
Then, from the air vents above them, came the cold, measured sound of slow clapping.
""Resourceful as always, brother,"" Marcus's voice echoed through the ductwork. ""Now come down to the study, or I burn the library from the outside with your daughter inside it.""
