Chapter 9 - A Mother’s Wrath
Inside the panic room, Cassandra hadn't been cowering in the corner. She had been watching the security feeds that Marcus couldn't cut—the hardwired, closed-circuit cameras isolated entirely from the main grid. She had seen the explosion. She had seen Marcus disarm me.
She also knew that the panic room's control console had access to the estate's fire suppression system. Not water sprinklers. The industrial halon gas system designed to extinguish chemical fires in the server room beneath the kitchen.
"If you don't drop the knife," Cassandra spoke into the microphone, her hand hovering over a glowing yellow button on the console, "I will suffocate you."
Marcus hesitated, looking around the smoke-filled kitchen. "You wouldn't. You'd kill Damon too."
"Damon knows how to hold his breath," she said coldly.
She smashed the button.
Immediately, the heavy vents above the kitchen snapped open. A massive, deafening hiss filled the room as thick, white halon gas deployed from the ceiling, instantly sucking the oxygen out of the space.
Marcus panicked. The sudden lack of air hit him like a physical blow. He dropped the knife, clutching his throat, coughing violently as the gas flooded his lungs.
I didn't hesitate. Taking a deep, final gulp of the remaining air, I rolled out from under him, grabbed the heavy iron poker from the floor, and swung it with every ounce of strength I had left. It connected solidly with the side of Marcus’s head. He collapsed instantly, hitting the floor completely unconscious.
I scrambled out of the kitchen, bursting through the doors into the grand foyer where Thorne and his men were securing the area. I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air, my lungs burning beautifully with fresh oxygen.
Seconds later, the heavy mechanical hum of the panic room echoed through the house. The steel doors hissed open.
Cassandra ran up the stairs, leaving the twins safely in the vault. She sprinted across the foyer and dropped to her knees beside me, her hands frantically checking my face, my chest, my bleeding wrist.
"I've got you," she sobbed, burying her face in my neck. "I told you I wasn't just a damsel in distress."
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I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her tightly against my bruised chest, laughing through the pain and the smoke. "Remind me to never, ever make you angry," I whispered into her hair. "You just saved my life."
Sirens wailed in the distance, echoing off the mountain peaks as dozens of heavily armed federal vehicles swarmed the estate driveway. The nightmare was finally, permanently over.
