Chapter 4 - The Night of the Long Knives
That night, the estate was breached. It wasn't a standard hit—no explosions, no front-gate assault. They came through the service tunnels, the ones Damon himself had commissioned during the renovation.
Damon was in his study when the power flickered. He knew the signs. He didn't reach for his gun; he reached for the emergency override, his fingers dancing across the terminal. He saw them on the internal cameras: six men, dressed in matte black, moving with the efficiency of special forces. They were heading straight for the East Wing.
He moved through the house with a ghost-like silence, his hand on the small of his back, drawing a suppressed 9mm. He bypassed the main hallway, taking the hidden service corridor that put him behind the intruders.
He saw the lead man pause outside the nursery door. The Warden was there, his hackles raised, a low, guttural growl vibrating through the floorboards. The intruder raised a silenced weapon.
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Damon didn't hesitate. He put two rounds into the man’s chest, then dropped the second one before he could turn. The remaining four scrambled, but the hallway was a kill box. Damon was the architect; he knew every angle, every shadow, every vulnerability of the house he had built. He finished them in under sixty seconds, but the last one whispered something as he died.
"The girl... she's not the target. She's the anchor."
