Chapter 14 - The Siege of Blackwood
The drive to Blackwood Manor was a nightmare of screaming tires and cold dread.
Through the rain-streaked windows, Elena saw the orange glow lighting up the horizon long before they reached the estate gates. The outer security post was burning, black smoke billowing into the midnight sky. Shell casings littered the asphalt, and two overturned vehicles blocked the driveway.
""Report!"" Viktor roared into the radio, his composure entirely shattered for the first time since Elena had met him. ""Marcus, get me Vault B!""
Static hissed through the speaker, followed by a faint, trembling voice. ""Mr. Vane... the breach was internal. Someone gave them the security codes to the lower sublevels. They are cutting through the secondary vault door now!""
""Hold them!"" Viktor bellowed, slamming his fist into the vehicle’s partition. ""I am on the grounds!""
Elena grabbed Viktor’s arm, her fingernails digging deep into his tailored sleeve. ""Viktor, he’s alone down there! He’s just a baby!""
Viktor looked at her, his obsidian eyes wild, stripped of all arrogance, revealing the raw, bleeding core of a father who had built an empire only to watch it crumble around his son. ""If they touch him, Elena... if they take him, there will be no mercy left in this city.""
The truck crashed through the burning wreckage of the gates, skidding to a halt before the manor’s grand steps. Viktor didn't wait. He kicked open the armored door and plunged into the burning fortress, assault rifle in hand, with Elena running directly behind him.
The interior of Blackwood Manor was a war zone. Paintings were slashed, antique mirrors shattered, and smoke drifted through the grand hallways. Gunfire echoed from the sublevel stairwell.
Viktor cut through the remaining attackers like a scythe through wheat. He showed no restraint, no hesitation, eliminating Dante’s mercenaries with brutal, bone-crushing savagery. Elena followed his bloody wake, stepping over fallen weapons and shattered stone, her only thought focused on the small boy who had curled into her lap to hear about golden threads.
They reached the heavy vault doors of Sublevel B.
The secondary door had been breached with thermite, its edges glowing cherry-red against the dim concrete. Two men were dragging a struggling, crying bundle out of the smoke.
""Papa! Elena!"" Leo’s scream tore through the corridor.
Viktor raised his weapon, but a sudden shadow lunged from the adjacent control room. A heavy blade glinted in the emergency lights, slicing across Viktor’s forearm, knocking his rifle to the floor.
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Dante Silvano stepped out of the smoke, a bloody machete in one hand and a revolver leveled at Viktor’s face.
""Too late, brother-in-law,"" Dante laughed, a wild, manic gleam in his gray eyes. ""The boy dies tonight, and the Silvano name belongs to me!""
