Chapter 6 - The Midnight Siege
A torrential autumn storm hit the valley on Thursday night. Thunder shook the floorboards of the stone house, and rain lashed the glass like handfuls of gravel.
At 1:30 AM, the lights inside the house flickered and died.
Downstairs in the study, Thomas opened his eyes instantly. He had been sitting in an armchair, fully dressed, his senses honed to the darkness. When the perimeter backup generator failed to kick on, he knew the power line hadn’t snapped from the storm.
It had been severed manually.
Thomas moved with soundless, military economy. He picked up an industrial aluminum flashlight and a heavy tactical baton, sliding a cell phone into his pocket. He climbed the stairs silently and slipped into Beate’s bedroom.
She was awake, sitting upright in bed, clutching her belly in terror. “Papa? The power...”
“Stay in the ensuite bathroom,” Thomas whispered, his voice calm, steady, and commanding. “Lock the interior deadbolt. Call Detective Brenner on the burner cell I gave you. Do not open that door until you hear my voice give the code word: *Edelweiss*. Understood?”
“Papa, be careful!” she choked out.
“Always.”
Thomas closed the bedroom door and moved down the wide hallway toward the rear terrace. Through the glass doors, illuminated by an arc of jagged lightning, a dark figure stood on the porch, holding an iron crowbar.
It was Gero.
His designer trench coat was soaked, his hair plastered to his forehead, his face twisted into an unhinged, rabid sneer. He had driven up through the service roads, bypassed the main gate by cutting through the forest, and smashed the electrical breaker box.
Gero raised the crowbar and brought it down against the terrace French doors.
The tempered glass shattered with an explosive crash.
Gero stepped over the broken shards into the darkness of the kitchen, breathing heavily. “Beate!” he screamed, his voice cracking with manic fury. “You ruined me! You think your pathetic old father can protect you?! Come out here and fix this!”
Suddenly, a blinding beam of ten-thousand-lumen white light hit Gero straight in the eyes.
Gero shrieked, blinded, raising the crowbar instinctively. “Who’s there?!”
“You were warned,” a voice growled from the shadows.
Gero swung the heavy iron bar wildly in the direction of the voice. But Thomas wasn’t where an untrained man would stand. Thomas sidestepped the clumsy, desperate strike with ease. With the precision of a soldier who had spent decades mastering hand-to-hand combat, Thomas drove his heel down onto Gero’s lead foot, pinning him, while his elbow connected sharply with Gero’s sternum.
The breath exploded from Gero’s lungs. He fell back against the counter, coughing blood and rain.
“You... you old bastard!” Gero wheezed, lunging forward with a knife drawn from his pocket.
Thomas didn’t even flinch. He parried the blade with the baton, knocking the knife across the hardwood floor, and grabbed Gero by the lapels of his expensive coat. With one fluid motion, Thomas slammed the younger, taller man face-first onto the marble kitchen island.
He twisted Gero’s right arm behind his back until the shoulder joint groaned under the strain.
“Fifty times,” Thomas whispered in Gero’s ear, his voice chilled below zero. “You struck my pregnant daughter fifty times with a belt.”
Gero sobbed in agony, his face pressed into the cold stone. “Stop! I’ll pay you! Whatever you want! I have millions offshore!”
“You are worthless,” Thomas said quietly.
Red and blue strobe lights began flashing through the front windows, slicing through the storm. Sirens wailed up the long driveway.
Brenner and four tactical officers burst through the shattered entryway, weapons drawn. “Police! Nobody move!”
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Thomas kept his knee firmly planted in the small of Gero’s back. He raised one hand calmly. “Suspect is secured, Detective. He brought a weapon. He violated the protective order. Take this garbage out of my house.”
***
