Chapter 3 - The Shadow in the Sanctuary
The air in the sunroom instantly turned to ice.
My hand tightened around the phone until the glass casing creaked under the pressure. In my line of work, mercy was a fatal flaw. Viktor Rostov was the man currently placing a ten-million-dollar bounty on my head. He had burned my warehouses in Red Hook and ordered hits on three of my top lieutenants.
And his daughter was standing six inches away from me, touching my children, walking through my home, holding the keys to my entire life.
“Frank,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “Lock down the perimeter. Nobody enters or leaves the estate. Get a tactical squad to the main house now.”
I ended the call and slipped the phone into my pocket.
Hannah—or Sarah—didn't move. She didn't reach for a hidden weapon. She didn't look toward the exit. She simply stood her ground, her pale skin turning a shade whiter, her breathing slow and measured.
“You know,” she whispered. It wasn't a question.
“Sarah Rostov,” I spat the name like poison, pulling a sleek, silenced 9mm pistol from my shoulder holster and aiming it directly at her heart. “The daughter of the butcher of Brooklyn. You infiltrated my home. You used my disabled daughter to get close to me. Give me one reason why I shouldn't put a bullet through your forehead right now.”
She didn't scream. She didn't drop to her knees to beg. Instead, she slowly raised both hands, palms open, showing me she was unarmed.
“Because if I wanted you dead, Julian, you would have died eleven days ago,” she said softly, tears glistening in her eyes. “And because Viktor Rostov isn't my father anymore. He’s my mother’s murderer.”
I kept the sight of the gun trained on the center of her chest. “Keep talking. You have thirty seconds.”
“Three years ago, my mother tried to leave Viktor,” Sarah said, her voice trembling with a mixture of raw grief and burning rage. “She discovered he was trafficking weapons through pediatric charity ships. When she threatened to go to the federal prosecutors, Viktor had her car run off the Manhattan Bridge. He covered it up as an accident.”
She stepped forward—right toward the barrel of my gun.
“I ran,” she continued, her voice rising with fierce emotion. “I used my mother’s secret contingency files to forge an identity. I didn't come here to spy on you, Julian. I came here because Thorne Manor is the only place in the entire state of New York that Viktor Rostov’s men cannot breach! I needed a sanctuary!”
“And my daughters?” I demanded, my grip on the weapon unwavering. “Was Claire’s walking just a sick performance to win my trust?”
“Don't you dare accuse me of that!” Sarah snapped, her blue eyes flashing with genuine fury. “I loved those little girls the moment I walked into their room! I saw two motherless children being raised by armed guards and cold doctors who treated them like broken toys! I didn't teach Claire to walk for you, Julian! I did it for her! Because she deserved to know what freedom felt like!”
Before I could answer, a loud, explosive BOOM rattled the reinforced glass roof of the sunroom.
The estate’s emergency alarms began to blare, bathing the white marble walls in flashing red lights. The sound of heavy automatic gunfire echoed from the eastern gates of the property.
My ear-piece clicked on. Frank’s voice panicked over the comms: “Boss! We’re under heavy attack! A convoy of armored SUVs just rammed the front gate! They’ve got heavy weapons and thermite explosives! They’re breaching the courtyard!”
Viktor Rostov had found us.
I looked at Sarah. Her eyes were wide with terror—not for herself, but as she looked toward the ceiling, toward the upstairs bedroom where Claire and Chloe were asleep.
“They’re here for me,” Sarah gasped, her hands clutching her apron. “Viktor found my encrypted trace!”
I lowered my weapon and shoved it into her hand.
Sarah stared at the gun in surprise.
“Can you shoot?” I barked over the deafening sound of distant explosions.
“My mother was an instructor,” she said, her grip instantly adjusting to the weight of the pistol with trained familiarity.
“Go to the panic room behind the library,” I ordered, pulling a second weapon from beneath my coat. “Take the girls. Lock the titanium door from the inside. If anyone other than me opens that hatch, you empty that magazine into their face.”
Sarah looked at me, a profound, unreadable expression passing between us. “What about you?”
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“This is my house,” I said, a dark, lethal grin touching my lips as the blood of a crime lord flooded my veins. “And Viktor Rostov just made the last mistake of his life.”
***
