CHAPTER 6 — BLOOD NEVER STAYS BURIED
CHAPTER 6 — BLOOD NEVER STAYS BURIED
Marcus stared at the satellite image Daniel had just received.
A blinking dot moved through the Mercer estate.
Lily's tracker.
Another dot followed.
Victor Salazar.
The distance between them kept shrinking.
"Can you connect me?"
Daniel nodded.
Seconds later Gabriel answered.
His breathing was ragged.
"I'm hit."
"Can you still move?"
"Barely."
"Where's Lily?"
"Hiding in the greenhouse."
Marcus looked at the map.
"Stay alive for three more minutes."
Gabriel laughed weakly.
"I'll try."
The greenhouse doors burst open.
Victor Salazar entered alone.
No guards.
No weapon visible.
Only slow, deliberate footsteps.
"Lily?"
His voice echoed gently.
"You don't have to be afraid."
She remained perfectly still beneath the table.
Marcus whispered through the phone,
"Don't answer."
Salazar stopped.
He smiled.
"I know you're here."
Silence.
Then...
He began speaking to someone else.
"Bring him in."
Two men dragged Gabriel into the greenhouse.
His hands were tied.
Blood soaked his shirt.
Lily gasped before she could stop herself.
Salazar looked directly toward the sound.
"There you are."
He smiled almost kindly.
"I knew you'd come out for him."
Gabriel shouted,
"RUN!"
Too late.
Salazar's men surrounded Lily.
One reached toward her—
A single gunshot shattered every window in the greenhouse.
Glass exploded everywhere.
The man reaching for Lily collapsed instantly.
A perfect sniper shot.
Then another.
Another.
Three guards fell before anyone understood where the bullets came from.
Salazar ducked behind a stone planter.
"What the—"
Outside...
Black helicopters roared overhead.
SUVs smashed through the estate gates.
Dozens of armed men flooded the grounds.
Vincent Russo smiled.
"He made it."
But Marcus wasn't there.
Not yet.
The helicopters weren't his.
Daniel's phone rang.
He answered.
Then looked at Marcus with visible shock.
"The aircraft landed."
Marcus frowned.
"We're still in the air."
Daniel nodded slowly.
"Exactly."
Someone else...
Using another Mercer jet...
Had arrived in Los Angeles first.
The deception had worked.
Every enemy had been watching the wrong airplane.
Marcus's real aircraft descended toward a private desert airstrip, far from government surveillance.
Marcus stood before the cabin door opened.
He checked the magazine in his pistol.
Then looked at Daniel.
"Tonight ends one of two ways."
Daniel didn't answer.
Marcus's voice became ice.
"I either bury my daughter..."
"...or I bury everyone who tried."
The cabin door opened.
May you like
The California night waited outside.
Marcus Mercer had finally come home.
