Chapter 7 - A House Divided
The room exploded into violence before Dorian’s sentence even finished echoing. Tanya’s hired contractors fired instantly, anticipating the betrayal. Muzzle flashes strobed wildly across the dark study, painting the torn wallpaper in violent bursts of white and orange.
""Down!"" Arthur roared, throwing his entire weight over Maya as bullets tore into the mahogany desk and pulverized the stone mantlepiece above them.
The sound was deafening, the enclosed space amplifying the gunfire until Maya felt the percussion vibrating deep inside her chest. Glass shrapnel and splinters of wood rained down like hail. Dorian’s two tactical guards collapsed instantly under the concentrated fire of Tanya’s mercenaries, their bodies thudding heavily against the floor.
Dorian himself ducked swiftly behind an antique marble bust, unbothered, drawing a compact automatic weapon from his coat and firing two precise shots that took down two of Tanya’s contractors before they could advance.
""Arthur, the emergency exit!"" Maya screamed over the roar of gunfire, pointing toward the heavy tapestry behind the desk. She knew this room; she had helped him pick the artwork, never knowing the hollow sound behind the wall hid a reinforced bunker passage.
Arthur fired back toward Tanya’s retreating figures, emptying his magazine to force them into cover. ""You go first! Take the stairs down to the boathouse!""
""I'm not leaving you!"" Maya shouted back, her fingers clutching his jacket sleeve with desperate strength, even as the sting of his earlier betrayal burned in her mind. ""If you die, I will never know what was real!""
Arthur met her eyes for a split second amidst the smoke and the smell of sulfur. His gaze was fierce, raw, stripped of all deception. ""Everything I told you about the contract was business, Maya. But everything in that suburban house—every breakfast, every quiet evening—that was the only real thing I've ever had.""
A heavy caliber bullet ripped through the mahogany desk inches from Arthur’s shoulder, showering them in wood pulp. Tanya stepped into the line of fire, a submachine gun resting comfortably against her hip, her eyes burning with pure, unhinged vengeance.
""Touching!"" Tanya screamed over the gunfire. ""Now both of you die together!""
Before she could squeeze the trigger, a sleek black ceramic knife flew through the smoke, embedding itself deeply into Tanya’s right shoulder. Tanya shrieked, dropping the weapon as blood bloomed across the white satin of her bodice.
May you like
Dorian stepped through the haze, his hand empty, having thrown the blade with lethal accuracy. ""Incompetent parasite,"" he sneered.
Arthur didn't hesitate. He grabbed Maya, slammed his shoulder into the hidden latch behind the tapestry, and threw them both into the pitch-black descent of the concrete tunnel just as a grenade rolled through the open doorway.
