Chapter 24 - The Ridge at Midnight
Vincent was out the door before Mason’s voice had even finished echoing through the timber rafters. He grabbed his Kimber from the hall table, checking the magazine with a practiced, lightning-fast motion, and stepped out onto the wide wooden veranda overlooking the cliffside.
The wind off Lake Michigan was howling now, driving a freezing sheet of late-autumn rain against the lodge’s dark glass windows. Below the bluff, half a mile down the winding mountain road, a single pair of headlights cut through the pitch-black pine forest. Then another. And another.
A convoy of five unmarked tactical vehicles was steadily climbing the private access road, ignoring the automated security gates, simply plowing through them as if they were made of paper.
Frank stepped out onto the veranda beside Vincent, racking the bolt of a suppressed assault rifle. "They bypassed the electronic overrides. That’s not local syndicate work. That’s federal-grade military hacking."
"It’s not the feds," Vincent said coldly, watching the lights wind their way up the incline. "It’s the clean-up crew Gabriel activated before we left the city. He didn't just come to kill me tonight. He set a dead man's switch."
Inside the lodge, the heavy oak door creaked open. Nora stood in the doorway, holding a sleeping Lucy wrapped in a thick wool blanket. Her eyes were wide, but her voice was remarkably steady.
"Vincent. What's happening?"
Vincent didn't turn around. He kept his eyes fixed on the approaching convoy winding through the dark pines below. "Pack the car, Frank. Take Nora and Lucy through the eastern drainage trail down to the private boat slip on the lake. There’s a twin-engine cruiser waiting."
Nora’s breath hitched. She stepped out onto the wet wooden deck, the freezing rain instantly catching her hair. "And you? Where are you going, Vincent?"
Vincent finally turned to look at her. The wind whipped his dark coat around his legs, but he stood as immovable as the stone cliffs beneath them. He walked over, gently reaching out to touch Lucy’s sleeping cheek, then looked up into Nora’s frightened, resolute eyes.
"I'm going to finish a conversation with my brother," Vincent said softly, pressing a heavy brass key into her palm. "And then I'm going to burn the bridge behind us so they can never follow you again."
Nora clutched the key, her knuckles turning white, her voice breaking through the storm. "Vincent Calder, don't you dare play the hero and leave us behind. If you stay, we stay."
Before Vincent could answer, the massive iron front gates of the lodge exploded inward in a blinding flash of orange fire and shattering steel, the shockwave rolling up the bluff and shaking the ancient pines to their roots.
From the burning wreckage below, a distorted voice echoed through the PA speakers of the leading tactical van, carried away by the shrieking wind:
"Good evening, little brother! Time to wake up!"
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Vincent pulled Nora back behind the heavy timber pillar of the veranda, leveling his Kimber into the dark as the first wave of armed shadows poured through the shattered gates.
***
