Chapter 31 - The Breach at Greyfriars
The red laser reticles hovered dead center over my sternum. Four beams, perfectly still, radiating through the haze of shattered wood dust and cigar smoke.
Around us, time seemed to dilate into the cold, calculated seconds of an ambush I had trained for half a lifetime ago.
"Down!" Frank roared.
He didn't hesitate. Before the lead mercenary could depress his trigger, Frank slammed his broad, two-hundred-and-forty-pound frame across the corner of the mahogany dining table, kicking out the heavy cast-iron candelabra into the front-line shooter’s face. Hot wax and iron struck flesh with a sickening crunch.
A muffled volley of suppressed automatic fire tore through the library. Bookshelves splintered, raining centuries-old leather bindings and shredded parchment down upon the Persian rug.
I grabbed Clara by the waist, sweeping her off her feet and throwing her down behind the reinforced oak credenza. "Stay flat, Clara! Don't move!"
"Arthur!" she cried out, her breath ragged, trembling as plaster rained over her hair. "The phone—who was that on the phone?!"
There was no time to answer. Across the ruined room, Marcus Aldrich let out a barking, wheezing laugh. He didn't dive for cover; he merely stood there against the mantelpiece, leaning heavily on his cane, watching the carnage with the gleeful delirium of a condemned man whose executioner had just been shot in the back.
"I told you, Arthur!" Marcus rasped over the chattering spit of suppressed gunfire. "You can buy all the judges in New York! You can tear down Julian’s towers brick by brick! But you don't control the people who hold the debt of this family!"
One of the masked operators stepped past the shattered door frame, his rifle sweeping toward my position behind the credenza. He wore unmarked black tactical gear—no insignia, no unit patches, but the fluid, deliberate movement screamed private European contract work.
I didn't wait for him to clear the corner.
My hand dove into the concealed pocket of my canvas dock coat, pulling out the small, blued steel Walther PPK I had kept holstered since the long nights on Berth 4. I rounded the edge of the credenza low, two inches off the floor, and squeezed twice.
The heavy hollow points tore straight through the operative's kneecap and pelvic girdle. He collapsed with a grunt, his weapon clattering across the floorboards.
Frank was already on the second shooter, driving an antique brass bookend into the man's temple with brutal efficiency, seizing his dropped submachine gun before the third man could pivot.
"Arthur! Clear the right flank!" Frank bellowed, firing a controlled burst that drove the remaining two mercenaries back into the grand hallway. "They're not here to talk. This is an eradication detail!"
Through the hallway, heavy boots echoed against the marble foyer. There weren't just four of them—an entire secondary assault team was moving through the outer perimeter of Greyfriars.
And amidst that gunfire, still clutched in my left hand, the burner phone remained connected. The thin, metallic hiss of an oxygen respirator wheezed through the speaker against my ear.
"Arthur..." Sarah's voice broke through again, weak, trembling, but unmistakably hers. "They know you found the safe... Arthur, run... he is coming for her..."
"Sarah!" I shouted into the mic, my heart pounding against my ribs with a force that threatened to break them. "Where are you? Sarah!"
The line clicked dead. A flat, low dial tone hummed in my ear.
"Dad!" Clara screamed.
I turned just in time to see Victoria Aldrich lunging toward Clara with a heavy silver letter opener she had snatched from the sideboard, her face contorted with hysterical fury. "You ruined my boy! You filthy harbor trash, you ruined my Julian!"
Before the blade could reach Clara, Clara didn't cower. The fear in her eyes vanished, replaced by the sheer, unyielding steel of a Vance. She side-stepped the clumsy lunge, caught Victoria’s wrist, and twisted it down against the edge of the credenza.
The silver knife clattered away. Victoria screamed in pain as Clara shoved her violently back into the velvet armchair.
"Don't touch me," Clara said, her voice dropping into a register so cold and commanding it made the hair on my arms stand up. "You don't touch my father, and you don't touch me."
Outside, sirens began to wail in the distance—the automated silent alarms I had wired directly to the State Police barracks ten miles away were finally answering.
"Arthur," Frank hissed, slamming a fresh magazine into the captured carbine. "We have twenty seconds before the second wave breaches through the conservatory. We have to take the tunnel."
I looked across the wreckage at Marcus Aldrich. The old snake was still smiling, his eyes glittering in the dark.
"You're too late, Arthur," Marcus whispered. "Julian is already halfway to the Atlantic. And when he lands, the Vance name will belong to history."
I stepped forward, grabbed Marcus by the collar of his tailored jacket, and hauled him up until his feet barely touched the floor.
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"If a single hair on my daughter's head is touched, Marcus," I said, my voice dead and quiet beneath the thunder of gunfire outside, "I won't just destroy your wealth. I will erase every tombstone that bears the Aldrich name. Frank—cuff him to the radiator. We're leaving."
***
