Chapter 14 - Blood on the White Magnolia
Ethan drove back to the estate at one hundred and twenty miles per hour, his armored vehicle tearing through the highway like a missile. His phone was ringing incessantly on the dashboard—it was Marcus Reid. Ethan did not answer.
When his SUV roared up the private winding driveway of the inland sanctuary, his instincts immediately screamed danger.
The heavy wrought-iron security gate, which required biometric authentication to open, was swung wide into the hedges. The guard shack was dark. Inside, Ethan’s trusted chief of personal security, an ex-Navy SEAL named Miller, was slumped over the desk, a pool of black blood coagulating beneath his ear. A clean, suppressed execution shot.
"Maria!" Ethan roared, slamming the vehicle into park, kicking his door open, and drawing both the SIG Sauer and a tactical folding knife.
The front doors of the mansion were slightly ajar. The heavy oak was splintered around the deadbolt. Inside, the grand foyer was dead quiet, illuminated only by the pale afternoon light filtering through the cathedral windows.
On the polished marble floor lay Sophie’s yellow cardigan, abandoned near the staircase. Beside it was a shattered porcelain vase and three spent nine-millimeter shell casings.
"Maria!" Ethan shouted, charging up the curved staircase, clearing every corner with lethal military precision. "Sophie!"
His heart was an engine of pure agony. If they had touched Sophie—if even a single hair on his daughter’s head had been harmed—he would burn the entire eastern seaboard to ashes. He would hunt every living relative of anyone connected to this syndicate and feed them to the harbor.
A faint scuffle came from the third-floor library.
Ethan kicked the library doors open, his gun raised, finger resting on the hair-trigger.
Inside, two men dressed in tactical black balaclavas lay dead on the Persian rug. One had a bullet through his throat; the other had his femoral artery severed, bleeding out rapidly against the bookshelves.
Behind the heavy mahogany desk stood Maria. Her shirt was torn at the shoulder, revealing a blooming purple bruise, and her face was splattered with blood that wasn't hers. In her hands, she held an empty shotgun, smoking at the barrel.
Behind her, tucked securely inside an antique walk-in vault, Sophie was huddled, clutching a heavy brass candlestick, her little jaw set with shocking defiance.
"Ethan!" Maria gasped, lowering the spent weapon, her hands shaking uncontrollably as the adrenaline crash hit her. "They came through the perimeter woods. Three of them. I got two. The third one—"
"Where is the third one?" Ethan demanded, rushing forward, sweeping Maria into his arm to check her pulse while pulling Sophie against his chest.
Sophie looked up at him, her eyes dark, showing no tears. "He didn't run into the woods, Daddy. He went down to your office. He said he was looking for Caroline’s ledger."
Ethan’s blood turned to pure liquid fire.
He looked at Maria. "Lock this vault from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except my voice. If someone else turns that wheel, you use the sidearm under the false floor."
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Maria nodded fiercely, cocking Ethan’s spare Glock with practiced efficiency. "Go."
Ethan turned on his heel and descended the stairs. His footsteps made no sound. He wasn't a civilized father anymore. He was the ghost of the Hawthorne Syndicate, and someone had dared to enter his temple.
