CHAPTER 6 — THE NIGHT THE FORTRESS FELL
CHAPTER 6 — THE NIGHT THE FORTRESS FELL
The first explosion shook the mansion like an earthquake.
Windows shattered across the west wing.
Bee instinctively ducked.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
"What was that?"
"C4."
Maxim grabbed a pistol from a biometric safe hidden behind a painting.
"They breached the outer wall."
Another explosion.
Closer.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Automatic weapons.
Dozens of them.
This wasn't an assassination.
It was an invasion.
The intercom crackled violently.
"They're inside!"
"East corridor compromised!"
"We've lost Team Three!"
Someone screamed.
The transmission ended.
Bee stared.
"How many people attacked?"
Maxim checked a tactical tablet.
His eyes narrowed.
"Too many."
Security camera feeds flickered back online.
Masked soldiers flooded across the estate from three different directions.
Night-vision goggles.
Military rifles.
Suppressors.
Disciplined formations.
Bee whispered,
"Those aren't gangsters."
"No."
"They're professionals."
Arthur burst into the room, breathing hard.
"They hacked the security network."
"Expected."
"They knew every blind spot."
"I know."
"They knew the emergency protocols."
Maxim's expression became dangerously calm.
"There is a traitor."
The room went silent.
Someone inside the Rosetti organization had opened the gates.
Another blast.
The study doors flew open.
A wounded guard stumbled inside.
Blood soaked his shirt.
"They're headed..."
He coughed violently.
"...for the archive room."
Maxim froze.
Not the vault.
Not the money.
Not the weapons.
The archives.
The files.
Bee saw the realization hit him.
"They're not here for me."
He looked at her.
"They're here for your father's records."
Without another word, Maxim grabbed Bee's hand.
"Come."
She didn't argue.
They sprinted through hidden corridors behind the library walls.
The mansion was a maze of secret passages built decades earlier.
Gunfire echoed on the other side of the walls.
Guards shouted.
Glass exploded.
Smoke filled the air.
Bee struggled to keep up.
"You planned for this?"
"My grandfather did."
They reached a steel door hidden behind an old wine cellar.
Maxim pressed his palm against the scanner.
The vault opened.
Inside...
Thousands of documents.
Hard drives.
Cash.
Gold.
But Maxim ignored all of it.
He walked straight to a small black safe.
Removed a single envelope.
Only one.
Bee frowned.
"That's what all this is about?"
"I hope not."
He opened it.
Inside was one photograph.
Nothing else.
Bee looked closer.
Three men stood beside a black sedan sometime in the late 1990s.
One was Patrick Callahan.
Another was a younger version of Maxim's father.
The third man's face had been burned away with acid.
Deliberately destroyed.
Written on the back in Patrick's handwriting were six words:
"Never trust the fourth partner. Ever."
Bee looked confused.
"There are only three men."
Maxim slowly turned the photograph over again.
His face lost all color.
"There were four."
Before Bee could ask what he meant—
A voice echoed from the darkness behind them.
Cold.
Calm.
Familiar.
"You finally found it."
Bee spun around.
Standing in the vault entrance, holding a silenced pistol, was Arthur Bennett.
May you like
The loyal family attorney smiled sadly.
"I'm afraid Patrick should have burned that photograph... instead of my face."
