Chapter 4 - THE POISONED TEA
“Get down!” I roared, grabbing Clara by the shoulder and dragging her toward the floor where the air was still somewhat clear.
The smoke was thick, yellow, and smelled of burning plastic and sulfur. It wasn't just a fire; it was a chemical suffocant designed to incapacitate quickly. Silas was using the ventilation system of the mansion against us.
My mother’s coughing was a wet, agonizing sound. Her oxygen tank hissed, but it was pulling in the tainted air from the room.
“Bennett!” Clara choked out, her eyes streaming with tears. “She can’t breathe!”
I crawled to the heavy mahogany desk. I didn't bother trying to break the reinforced glass windows; they were bulletproof and required explosives to breach. I had designed this room to be a fortress, and now it was our tomb.
“Hold her mask tight to her face!” I ordered Clara.
I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, frantically tearing through files until my fingers brushed the cold steel of the emergency breach kit I kept for worst-case scenarios. I pulled out a heavy, specialized breaching charge—a focused explosive meant to blow the hinges off a steel door.
“Cover your ears and keep your heads down!” I yelled.
I slapped the magnetic charge against the upper hinge of the oak door, twisted the timer, and dove behind the massive leather sofa, pulling Clara and my mother’s wheelchair down with me.
Three seconds later, the room shook violently.
The explosion was deafening. The heavy oak door blew entirely off its frame, crashing into the hallway corridor in a cloud of splintered wood and drywall.
I didn't wait for the smoke to clear. I grabbed my mother’s wheelchair with one hand, my weapon in the other, and shoved her into the hallway. Clara stayed right beside me, holding the oxygen mask firmly over my mother’s face.
The hallway was eerily quiet. Silas hadn't left guards outside the door. He wanted it to look like a tragic electrical fire. He wanted clean hands.
“We can’t use the front entrance,” I whispered, coughing the toxic smoke from my lungs. “His loyalists will be stationed at the gates. We take the servant’s stairs to the underground garage.”
Clara nodded, her face pale but her jaw set with a fierce determination. She took over pushing the wheelchair, navigating the hidden, narrow corridors she had spent a year cleaning.
We reached the subterranean garage without encountering a single guard. The concrete cavern was cold and smelled of oil. My collection of luxury cars sat in pristine rows, but I bypassed them all for an armored, unmarked black SUV I used for discrete meetings.
I threw open the back doors. “Get her inside.”
As Clara helped my frail mother into the leather seats, I checked the perimeter. It was too quiet. Silas was a meticulous planner. He wouldn't just leave the garage unattended.
My instincts screamed at me a second before I heard the footsteps.
From behind a concrete pillar stepped Victor, my head of security. He was a massive man with a scarred jaw, someone I had trusted with my life for five years. He was holding a suppressed submachine gun, aimed directly at my chest.
“I’m sorry, Boss,” Victor said, his voice entirely void of emotion. “Silas promised me the northern territory. It’s strictly business.”
My gun was already raised, but Victor had the tactical advantage. If I fired, he would spray the vehicle behind me, hitting Clara and my mother.
“You’re a dead man either way, Victor,” I said, keeping my aim steady on his forehead. “Silas leaves no loose ends. He’ll put a bullet in you the moment you outlive your usefulness.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Victor sneered. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Before he could fire, the deafening roar of a V8 engine echoed through the garage.
Suddenly, a heavy maintenance truck, used by the groundskeepers, slammed into the side of the concrete pillar Victor was standing next to. The impact threw Victor violently to the ground, his gun clattering across the cement.
The door of the truck kicked open, and an old, grease-stained man stepped out holding a heavy wrench. It was Elias, the head mechanic who had worked for my father for forty years.
“Get in the damn car, Bennett!” Elias shouted, standing over Victor’s groaning body.
I didn't hesitate. I jumped into the driver’s seat of the SUV, hit the ignition, and slammed the accelerator. The tires shrieked on the concrete as we tore out of the underground bunker, bursting through the wooden exit gates into the pouring rain of the Chicago evening.
“Are you both alright?” I yelled over the roar of the engine, wildly checking my rearview mirror.
“She’s breathing,” Clara gasped from the backseat, clutching my mother’s hand. “Bennett, she’s so weak.”
I glanced back. My mother’s eyes were closed, her skin a terrifying shade of gray.
“You hold on, Mother,” I gritted out, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. “I’m taking you to the safehouse. Then I’m going to the airport.”
We drove in tense silence for twenty minutes, weaving through the slick, rain-soaked streets to a non-descript apartment building on the South Side. I carried my mother inside while Clara hauled the portable oxygen tank.
Once my mother was resting on the bed, her breathing slightly more regular, I turned to leave.
Clara grabbed my arm. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
“I’m going with you,” she demanded.
“No. You stay here and protect my mother. Silas’s men will be heavily armed at the airport.”
“That’s my son, Bennett!” Clara cried, tears mixing with the soot on her face. “For six years I’ve lived like a ghost, scrubbing floors and hiding in the shadows just to keep him safe. I am not sitting in an apartment while a monster puts him on a plane.”
I looked into her eyes. Beneath the fear and the exhaustion, I saw the exact same fire that used to burn in my brother Thomas’s eyes. She was a mother fighting for her child’s life. I couldn't deny her that.
“Fine,” I said, pulling a spare handgun from my holster and pressing it into her hands. “But when the shooting starts, you stay behind me.”
Clara took the gun, her hands surprisingly steady. “Let’s go get Leo.”
I turned back to the door, but before I could open it, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was an unknown number.
I answered it, putting it on speaker.
“Bennett,” Silas’s smooth voice drifted through the line, completely unbothered by the fact that I had survived his fire. “I assume you found the boarding pass I left for the maid.”
My blood froze. He left it on purpose.
“Where is the boy, Silas?” I snarled.
Silas chuckled. A cold, dry sound.
May you like
“He’s not at the airport, Bennett. That was just a distraction to keep you busy while I cleared out the mansion. If you want to see your nephew alive, come to Pier 44 at the old shipyard. You have thirty minutes. Come alone, or I drop the boy into the harbor.”
The line went dead.
