Chapter 5 - The Sky FallsUpstairs in Paisley's bedroom, I sat calmly in a velvet armchair beside her bed, watching her peaceful breathing.
Downstairs, the music played on. Alistair was boasting loudly to Genevieve about how he would sell my late mother's ring to cover the rest of the dress's cost.
Then, the world outside exploded.
It started with a low, deep frequency that vibrated through the floorboards—a deep, thrumming bass that made the water in the glass on Paisley's nightstand ripple violently.
Within seconds, the deep hum escalated into a deafening, terrifying roar descending directly from the clouds. The air pressure in the room plummeted. The massive floor-to-ceiling double-pane windows of the estate rattled so hard they sounded as if they were about to shatter.
Downstairs, the music cut out instantly. I heard the sharp, frantic sound of glass crashing onto marble as someone dropped a champagne flute.
"What the hell is that?!" Alistair’s voice boomed from the foyer, laced with sudden, naked confusion.
The house lights flickered once. Twice. Then, with a loud electrical pop, the entire estate—along with the streetlights for three blocks around us—was plunged into total darkness.
The auxiliary generator didn't kick on. Lucas had already fried the estate's circuit grid from three states away.
Above the roof, the deafening thunder of heavy rotor blades tore through the night sky. Powerful, military-grade spotlight beams pierced through the darkness, slicing through the sheer drapes of the master bedroom and turning the foyer into a blinding blinding spectacle of blue and white light.
Genevieve let out a high-pitched, hysterical scream from the lower hall. "Alistair! What is happening?! Is it an earthquake?!"
"Shut up!" Alistair yelled, his footsteps rushing toward the front doors. "It’s probably a police helicopter searching for someone in the neighborhood!"
Then came the sound that shook the foundation of the house to its core.
BOOM!
The massive, twelve-foot reinforced oak front entrance of the Vance estate wasn't breached with a key or kicked open. It was struck by a hydraulic breacher charge, blowing the heavy doors inward off their steel hinges and sending splintered wood crashing across the polished marble floor.
Tactical smoke poured through the shattered entryway, illuminated by the sweeping red laser sights of twenty black-clad operator units moving in tight, flawless formation.
"ON THE GROUND! DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW!" heavy voices thundered through the smoke.
Alistair’s terrified, shrill voice rose above the chaos. "What the hell are you doing?! This is private property! I am Alistair Vance! Call the police! CALL THE POLICE!"
"Target secured! Perimeter clear!" an operator barked into a comms rig.
The tactical units suddenly parted, stepping aside to form a double line stretching from the destroyed entryway toward the grand staircase.
Five men walked through the swirling white smoke.
Five men in tailored suits and dark tactical coats, moving with the absolute, terrifying confidence of monarchs entering a conquered territory. They didn't look like police. They didn't look like federal agents. They looked like the storm itself.
Ethan Pembroke stepped into the center of the foyer, his polished leather shoes crunching over the shattered wood and glass. His icy gray eyes swept over the ruined hallway, locking onto Alistair, who was currently pinned to the floor by a tactical boot, and Genevieve, who was cowering behind a overturned velvet sofa, weeping hysterically.
Ethan didn't look at Alistair's bleeding face. He looked up the grand staircase toward the shadows of the second-floor landing, where I stood quietly looking down at them.
My eldest brother took off his leather gloves, his voice unnervingly calm, echoing through the dead quiet of the estate:
“Where is my niece?”
Alistair turned his head against the cold marble floor, looking up at the five giants standing in his home, then up at me.
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And for the first time in nine years, the color drained entirely from his face as he realized the terrible truth. He hadn't been abusing a helpless, abandoned woman.
He had just declared war on the most dangerous family on earth.
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