Chapter 8 - The Billionaire’s Wrath
Miles away, trapped in a standstill traffic jam on the interstate surrounded by flashing red taillights and blaring sirens, Dominic Mason stared at his phone with mounting dread. The screen showed a complete blackout of all internal sensors at the Buckhead estate. The smart home’s primary gateway had been severed, and the auxiliary power had been cut. For a man who lived his entire life controlling every variable, sitting helplessly in the back of a bulletproof Maybach while his wife and son were trapped inside a compromised fortress was a special kind of hell.
"Get me out of this car," Dominic commanded, his voice dropping into an icy baritone that made his private driver flinch in the front seat.
"Sir, the road is completely blocked by three semi-trucks, and the local police report a major chemical spill ahead—we can't move forward or backward," the driver stammered, his hands shaking on the steering wheel.
Dominic didn't answer. Instead, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He reached down to the floorboards, unclipped his advanced motorized leg braces, and locked them into place with a sharp series of metallic clicks. Over the past six months, he had pushed his body through agonizing physical rehabilitation—not just to walk down a wedding aisle, but for moments like this. He grabbed his heavy titanium-alloy cane, pushed open the rear door of the Maybach, and stepped out directly into the pouring rain.
"Sir! Where are you going?" the driver shouted, unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Stay in the car," Dominic ordered coldly over the roar of the storm. "Call Commissioner Vance. Tell him Dominic Mason is executing emergency protocol delta-nine on his own property."
Without looking back, Dominic began to run. His stride was stiff at first, mechanical and powered by sheer force of will, but as adrenaline flooded his veins, he pushed past the gridlocked cars, sprinting down the wet highway toward the side streets leading directly to the Buckhead neighborhood. Every step sent sharp, agonizing shocks through his atrophied muscles, but he didn't care. The image of Megan’s terrified face flashed behind his eyelids, fueling a fire hotter and more destructive than anything he had felt since the night of the crash that crippled him.
Back at the mansion, Marcus Vance was losing his patience. Using a portable plasma torch he had lugged up the stairs, he began cutting into the reinforced steel frame of the panic room door. Sparks showered across the hallway floor, illuminating his twisted smile in the darkness. "You can hide in there for an hour, Megan, but this door was designed to withstand a bomb, not a sustained plasma arc. Open up, hand over the flash drive, and I promise I won't lay a finger on your precious son!"
Inside the vault, the air was growing thin. Megan stood near the emergency monitor, watching the thermal camera feed from the hallway. The blue light of the console illuminated her pale, determined face. She looked down at Jason, who had fallen back asleep against her shoulder, exhausted by the terror of the night. She knew she couldn't hide forever. If Marcus breached the door, she would have to fight. She reached into the emergency medical kit on the wall, her fingers wrapping around a heavy, solid-steel oxygen canister.
Suddenly, a deafening explosion echoed from the front entrance downstairs. The massive oak front doors had been blown off their hinges.
May you like
A cold, lethal voice rang through the hollow halls of the mansion, carrying an authority so absolute that even Marcus Vance stopped his plasma torch mid-cut.
"Marcus Vance," Dominic’s voice boomed through the estate’s auxiliary intercom system, dripping with ice and venom. "You have exactly ten seconds to drop the torch, walk out to the front foyer, and beg God for mercy. Because if I reach you first, death will feel like a promotion."
