Chapter 2 - The Red Dot
The red laser dot danced across the dark glass of the vehicle,
a silent harbinger of death.
It was a sniper’s mark,
hovering precisely where Killian’s head would have been.
My breath caught in my throat,
and I pressed myself harder against the stone pillar.
Killian did not flinch,
his face turning to stone.
He kept his arm extended,
holding me firmly behind the safety of the column.
“Stay down,”
he commanded,
his voice low and deadly.
The red dot moved from the windshield to the stone doorframe,
searching for a target.
On the landing above,
Aoife lowered her phone,
her eyes scanning the dark hallway.
She did not see us hidden in the recess,
but she knew something had gone wrong.
The silence of the house was now deafening,
broken only by the distant hum of the idling engine.
Suddenly,
the glass of the side door shattered with a soft,
suppressed crack.
A bullet tore through the air,
embedding itself in the wooden paneling behind us.
I did not scream,
though every nerve in my body was screaming for me to run.
“They are impatient,”
Killian muttered,
his hand reaching into his jacket.
He pulled out his own weapon,
a heavy black semi-automatic pistol.
He checked the magazine with a practiced,
silent motion.
“Finn,”
he whispered into his cuff,
“we have a shooter on the east terrace.”
“I am on it,
boss,”
Finn’s voice cracked back,
tense and strained.
“We have multiple intruders breaching the rear gardens.”
The trap was closing around us,
and the mansion was no longer a fortress.
It was a cage.
I looked at the floor,
noticing the trail of dust from the shattered glass.
“The old wine cellar,”
I whispered,
grabbing the sleeve of his expensive coat.
“There is a passage that connects to the old carriage house.”
Killian looked down at me,
his dark eyebrows lifting in surprise.
“How do you know about that?”
he asked.
“I clean the estate,”
I replied,
“and I pay attention to the blueprints in the library.”
A second bullet struck the pillar,
spraying us with tiny fragments of stone and plaster.
Killian did not hesitate,
his hand catching mine.
“Lead the way,
Norah,”
he said.
We moved quickly through the shadows of the service corridor,
avoiding the main hallway.
The air in the back of the house was cold,
smelling of old dust and laundry detergent.
As we passed the kitchen,
I saw the silver tray I had prepared earlier,
now abandoned on the counter.
The ice in his coffee was already melting,
turning the dark liquid pale.
We reached the heavy wooden door of the basement,
its hinges rusted and stiff.
I grabbed the iron handle,
pulling with all my strength,
but it did not budge.
Killian stepped in front of me,
his large shoulder slamming into the wood.
With a loud groan,
the door gave way,
revealing a dark staircase leading into the earth.
Behind us,
the sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the foyer.
They were inside the house,
and they were hunting for us.
We scrambled down the stairs,
the darkness swallowing us whole.
I knew these steps by heart,
having carried heavy crates of wine up them for years.
Killian’s grip on my hand was tight,
his palm warm and rough against mine.
“Watch your step,”
I whispered,
guiding him through the blackness.
At the bottom of the stairs,
the air was damp and smelled of wet earth.
The old wine cellar was a maze of wooden racks and stone alcoves.
In the distance,
we heard the heavy thud of the basement door being kicked open.
A beam of light sliced through the darkness,
searching the damp corridors.
“They are fast,”
Killian muttered,
raising his weapon.
He stood in front of me,
his back broad and protective.
I felt a strange sensation in my chest,
a mixture of terror and something else I could not name.
The devil of Dublin was protecting his maid,
a girl he had ignored for three years.
“They have night vision,”
I whispered,
noticing the green glow of their goggles.
“We need to cut off their light.”
I reached for a wooden shelf,
my fingers finding a heavy,
unopened bottle of vintage port.
Without thinking,
I hurled it into the darkness,
aiming for the stone floor near the intruders.
The bottle shattered with a loud crash,
the dark liquid splashing everywhere.
The sudden noise startled the lead shooter,
his flashlight whipping toward the sound.
In that split second of distraction,
Killian fired.
The suppressed gunshot was a dull thud,
followed by the heavy fall of a body.
“Move,”
May you like
Killian commanded,
pulling me deeper into the maze.
