Maris Lane carefully settled the thick towel around seven-year-old Asher’s shoulders

The heavy steel door of the panic room slid shut with a resounding, metallic clack, sealing Maris and Asher inside the bright, clinical safety of the bunker. The heavy locking mechanisms engaged automatically. Maris pressed her hands against the cold metal, her heart tearing in two as she listened to the muffled, heavy footsteps of Orson sprinting back up the stairs toward the gunfire.

Above ground, the mansion had devolved into a full-scale war zone.

The Price syndicate mercenaries had breached the outer courtyard using heavy explosives. The beautiful, airy conservatory where the evening had begun was now a landscape of shattered glass, pulverized marble, and crushed white roses.

Orson burst through the service doors into the main hallway, moving with absolute, predatory grace. He took cover behind a massive, overturned mahogany table, his customized automatic rifle raised.

“Are the perimeter guards holding the terrace?” Orson asked his comms earpiece, the deafening roar of automatic gunfire forcing him to shout.

“They are pushing through the glass, Boss!” Silas screamed over the radio. “There are too many of them! We are falling back to the grand foyer!”

“Will you deploy the incendiaries on the eastern flank and pinch their rear?” Orson commanded, his cold eyes calculating the angles of the room reflected in the surviving gilded mirrors.

“Deploying now, sir!”

Orson leaned out from cover, the refined artistic tattoos across his hands stabilizing his weapon with flawless, lethal precision. He fired in rapid, measured bursts. The armor-piercing rounds shredded through the smoke and darkness. Three mercenaries attempting to breach the hallway collapsed instantly, their tactical gear failing against the sheer stopping power of Orson’s rifle.

“Did you really think you could bleed me in my own home?” Orson asked the empty, smoke-filled air.

He moved fluidly, advancing through the ruined estate. He was a terrifying force of nature, a movie-star handsome warlord dressed in a tailored suit, orchestrating death with perfect composure.

Another explosion rocked the western wing, plunging half the mansion into absolute darkness, illuminated only by the frantic flashes of muzzle fire. The smell of cordite and burning silk curtains filled his lungs.

Suddenly, a group of five heavily armed Price hitters breached the grand foyer, catching two of Orson's men in a deadly crossfire.

“Are you reloading?” Orson asked his men, diving behind a marble column as bullets chewed the stone to dust above his head.

“We’re pinned, Boss!” one operative yelled back, pinned behind a champagne velvet sofa that was rapidly being torn to shreds.

Orson didn't hesitate. He pulled a flashbang grenade from his vest, pulled the pin, and hurled it into the center of the foyer.

“Will you close your eyes?” Orson shouted.

A blinding, concussive flash erupted, momentarily blinding the advancing mercenaries. Orson stepped out from cover, a dark, lethal silhouette against the smoke. He fired with terrifying accuracy, dropping four of the men before they could recover their vision. The fifth man panicked, scrambling backward toward the shattered front doors, his weapon firing blindly into the ceiling.

“Are you running so soon?” Orson asked, his deep voice carrying clearly over the ringing in their ears.

He raised his weapon, aiming directly at the fleeing man’s center of mass. But before Orson could pull the trigger, the massive, reinforced double doors of the mansion were blown completely off their hinges by a military-grade breaching charge.

The shockwave threw Orson backward, slamming his powerful shoulders brutally into the marble column. He slid to the floor, his ears ringing violently, his vision swimming in a haze of smoke and dust.

Through the massive, smoking hole where the front doors had been, dozens of tactical lights pierced the darkness, cutting through the red emergency strobe lighting. The main assault force of the Price family had arrived.

“Do you think this is over, Orson?” a booming voice echoed from the courtyard. It was Victor Price, Eleanora’s father, leading the charge himself.

Orson slowly pushed himself up from the floor, his customized rifle gripped tightly in his hands. Blood trickled from a small cut on his forehead, but his cold, perceptive eyes burned with an unyielding, unbreakable fire. He stood tall in the ruins of his empire, placing his body squarely between the invading army and the hidden stairwell that led to his son and the woman he loved.