Chapter 155 - The Battle for the Lawn
The heavy glass French doors of our dining room shattered under a concentrated volley of suppressed 9mm fire, raining sharp, crystalline shrapnel across our Persian rugs.
"Clear the shoreline! Breach the master suite!" a harsh, eastern European voice barked from the darkness of the lawn.
Marcus Vance was an absolute titan in the dark.
He didn't fire from the open. Using the thick limestone pillars of the covered terrace as ballistic cover, his carbine spat controlled, devastating three-round bursts through the mist.
Two mercenaries in black tactical wetsuits collapsed onto the gravel pathway before their boots could touch the stone steps.
Above our heads, the electric whine of Noah’s seaplane screamed into the sky.
The carbon-fiber drone banked sharply over the lake, its miniature high-output halogen searchlight blazing to life, casting a blinding, two-thousand-lumen spotlight directly into the cockpit of the second advancing RIB.
The mercenary pilot screamed, throwing his arm over his eyes as his night-vision goggles overloaded in an explosion of white phosphor blindness. The boat veered sharply off course, slamming into the granite boulders of our breakwater at forty knots.
The composite hull disintegrated with a deafening screech of tearing fiberglass and exploding fuel, throwing the occupants into the freezing black waters of the lake.
"Down! Cover!" I shouted, leaning around the terrace balustrade, firing a burst that dropped a third shooter advancing across our clover pasture.
Return fire hammered the stone column inches from my ear, throwing stinging chips of limestone across my cheek.
Through the smoke, a towering mercenary in heavy maritime armor kicked through the shattered frame of the library window, raising an automatic shotgun straight at the doorway leading to the children's room.
"Sophie!" I screamed, lunging across the ruined floorboards.
Before the shooter could squeeze the trigger, a small, white furry object flew through the air, striking him squarely in the tactical goggles.
Barnaby the plush rabbit.
The shooter blinked, his shotgun barrel wavering for a fraction of a second in sheer, stunned confusion.
That fraction of a second was all I needed.
I stepped through the threshold, brought the muzzle of my MPX against the side of his ballistic helmet, and fired.
The mercenary hit the floorboards like a sack of wet cement.
Sophie stood in the doorway of the bedroom, her hands on her hips, her chin lifted high, looking at the fallen giant with cold, aristocratic disdain.
"That was for my rabbit," Sophie said quietly.
Noah stepped up beside her, holding his tablet, breathing heavily. "Mom... the French Gendarmerie tactical helicopter just cleared the ridge. The lake is secure."
From the dark mountain sky above, the thundering rotor wash of an Airbus H225 Super Puma swept across the lawn, its thirty-million-candlepower searchlight bathing the estate in midday brilliance as twenty elite French maritime commandos fast-roped onto our grass.
Marcus lowered his smoking weapon, stepped into the ruined living room, and looked at me through the drifting powder smoke.
May you like
"Ethan was right, Victoria," Marcus panted, wiping blood from a minor scrape on his cheek. "They aren't going to stop until we cut the head off the snake."
"Then we go to Monaco, Marcus," I replied, stepping over the shattered glass, picking up Sophie’s plush rabbit, and dusting off its velvet ears. "Pack the children. We’re taking the Sovereign Star."
