Chapter 3 - Blood in the Foyer
The cold steel of Viktor’s combat knife sliced through the air barely an inch from Richard’s throat. Richard jerked his head back just in time, feeling the wind of the blade brush against his skin. Before Viktor could retract his arm for a second strike, Richard drove his heel down hard onto the mercenary’s instep, hearing a satisfying crunch of cartilage beneath his heavy leather shoe.
Viktor cursed, stumbling backward, but the second tactical guard—shaking off the blow from the brass umbrella stand—recovered his footing and slammed the heavy butt of his carbine directly into Richard’s ribs.
The impact knocked the wind out of Richard in a violent gasp. He stumbled sideways, slamming against the wood-paneled wall of the hallway, a sharp, white-hot pain shooting through his left side.
“Hold him!” Vanessa screamed, her face twisted with fury as she watched the struggle. “Cut him if you have to! The client doesn't care if he’s breathing as long as he signs the transfer documents before midnight!”
Richard slumped against the wall, fighting for air, his vision swimming slightly at the edges. Client? The word echoed in his mind through the haze of pain. This wasn't a random home invasion or a simple extortion plot. There was someone else behind this—someone with corporate resources, legal clearance, and a deep, burning vendetta against the Sterling empire.
Viktor stepped forward, wiping a smear of blood from his split lip, his grip on the combat knife tight and steady. He pressed the cold tip of the blade directly against the hollow of Richard’s throat, just above the collar of his ruined shirt.
“You’ve got a lot of fight for a man who spends his life behind a mahogany desk, Mr. Sterling,” Viktor mocked, his breath smelling of stale tobacco and adrenaline. “Too bad it’s completely wasted. Where do you think your little girl is going to go? The woods behind this estate stretch for miles. There are freezing creeks, wild coyotes, and a storm moving in from the Atlantic. Without a coat, she won't survive thirty minutes in those temperatures.”
Richard’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. Sophie. She was out there in the freezing drizzle, wearing only her thin, wrinkled pajamas and mismatched socks, running blindly through unfamiliar woods while a pack of mercenaries hunted her down.
“If you touch a single hair on her head,” Richard whispered, his voice trembling not with fear, but with a dark, terrifying promise, “I will hunt down every single person connected to this operation. I will spend every last cent I have to put you in a hole so deep the sun will never reach you.”
Viktor grinned, pressing the blade slightly deeper until a single drop of crimson welled up on Richard’s skin. “Save the movie lines for your board meetings, Sterling. Right now, you’re going to walk into your study, sit at your desk, and sign over controlling interest of Sterling Global to our employer. Otherwise, we start sending you pieces of your daughter one by one.”
Before Viktor could finish his sentence, a sudden, muffled crash echoed from the rear of the mansion near the kitchen wing.
It wasn't the sound of a gunshot. It was the heavy, splintering crack of reinforced glass shattering under immense pressure, followed immediately by the harsh, blaring shriek of the perimeter security system roaring back to life with a deafening klaxon.
Viktor froze, his head snapping toward the hallway leading to the kitchen. “What the hell was that? I thought we cut the master grid!”
“We did!” the second guard shouted over the siren. “Unless...”
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Suddenly, the overhead lights in the mansion flickered violently once, twice, and then plunged the entire estate into pitch-black darkness. The emergency generators kicked in three seconds later, bathing the hallways in an eerie, pulsing red glow.
And from the front foyer doors, half-shattered from the outside, came the sound of heavy, disciplined boots marching in unison—not three men, but dozens.
