Chapter 8 - The Siege of the Mercer Estate
While the twins rested comfortably, their blood counts stabilizing by the minute under Iris’s watchful care, the storm outside the mansion finally broke.
The sleek iron gates of the estate didn't just open—they were smashed flat by a reinforced heavy-duty tow truck ramming through the brick pillars with deafening crunch of metal and stone.
Through the gaping hole poured four black tactical vans, spinning across the snowy courtyard and disgorging dozens of heavily armed mercenaries clad in black combat gear.
Crosby Vane—a tall, silver-haired billionaire with cold, reptilian eyes and an expensive cashmere coat—stepped out of the lead vehicle, holding a heavy-caliber pistol, flanked by his elite security detail.
“Lawson Mercer!” Vane’s amplified voice boomed across the courtyard through a handheld megaphone, cutting through the howling wind and sleet. “Drop your weapons and surrender the lab notes! You’re fighting a war you lost four years ago!”
Inside the ground-floor security command center, Lawson stood before the massive wall of security monitors, watching Vane’s men fan out across the property.
His face was a mask of cold, unmitigated death.
“Prescott,” Lawson said softly, pulling his custom Sig Sauer P226 from his shoulder holster and checking the chamber.
“Boss?”
“Open the front doors.”
Prescott blinked. “Open them, sir? They have heavy ordinance—!”
“Open the damn doors,” Lawson repeated, his voice dropping into a lethal, vibration-filled hum. “Let Mr. Vane see what happens when a wolf walks into a bear’s den.”
The heavy mahogany front doors of the mansion swung inward with a slow, ominous creak.
Crosby Vane smiled coldly, lowering his megaphone. He stepped up the stone steps of the porch, raising his pistol, expecting to find cowering servants or a desperate man begging for terms.
Instead, standing alone in the grand foyer beneath the crystal chandelier, bathed in the amber light of the hall, was Lawson Mercer.
He wore no body armor. He held his pistol casually at his side. His eyes burned with the terrifying, absolute authority of a man who had just saved his children from the grave.
“You’re trespassing, Crosby,” Lawson said, his voice carrying effortlessly across the foyer into the cold sleet.
Vane sneered, taking a step across the threshold, raising his gun toward Lawson’s chest. “You arrogant bastard. You think because you’re the king of Chicago you can hide Yates’s research from the board? Hand over the girl and the journal, Mercer, or I’ll burn this entire estate to the ground with you and your brats inside it.”
Lawson didn't flinch. He didn't raise his weapon.
“You mentioned my children, Crosby,” Lawson whispered.
At that exact moment, the red laser dots of forty sniper rifles—wielded by Lawson’s elite enforcers positioned silently on the rooflines and surrounding tree lines—simultaneously locked onto the chests and foreheads of every single mercenary standing in the courtyard.
Vane’s enforcers froze instantly, their weapons dropping toward the snow as they realized they were fish in a barrel.
Color drained from Vane’s face. He looked wildly around the courtyard, then back at Lawson.
“You... you set a trap,” Vane choked out, his pistol shaking in his hand.
“You walked into a graveyard, Crosby,” Lawson corrected coldly.
Before Vane could pull his trigger, Lawson moved with blinding, terrifying speed. He raised his Sig Sauer and fired once—clean, precise, shattering Vane’s weapon hand and sending the heavy pistol clattering across the marble floor.
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As Vane screamed, clutching his bloody wrist and dropping to his knees, Prescott and a dozen armed guards swarmed the porch, pinning Vane and his men to the frozen ground in a matter of seconds.
The siege of the Mercer estate was over before it had even truly begun.
