Alexander pressed his back tight against the marble planter, the hot copper tang of blood filling his mouth as the relentless sound of footsteps sprinted closer down the hallway.

"Check the left side! Flush the bastard out!" a voice barked from just around the corner.

Alexander didn’t wait to be cornered. He pivoted around the edge of the planter, his steady right hand locking the sights of the silenced P320 onto the first tactical helmet that rounded the corner.

Pft. Pft.

Two suppressed pops echoed quietly over the ringing in his ears. The high-velocity 9mm rounds drilled cleanly through the mercenary’s tactical goggles, dropping him onto the hardwood. Before the second operator could even adjust his barrel, Alexander shifted his stance and fired twice more into his throat, sending him crashing backward into a heavy decorative table in a heap of shattered wood.

BANG!

A blind, desperate shot from the third remaining mercenary down the hall zipped low along the floorboards, tearing through the meat of Alexander’s right thigh.

"Arrgh!" growled Alexander, his leg buckling beneath his weight as a white-hot wave of agony shot up his spine.

As he fell to one knee, his predatory instincts took control. He stabilized his right wrist against his good knee and squeezed the trigger until the slide locked back empty. The final three rounds caught the last shooter in the chest and forehead, sending his lifeless body sliding down the blood-stained hallway.

A heavy silence descended over the upper floor of the estate, broken only by the crackle of distant fires burning in the courtyard below.

Alexander let the empty pistol slip from his numb fingers, the weapon clattering onto the floorboards. His breathing was shallow and ragged, each gasp feeling like broken glass in his chest. Shifting his weight with a sharp groan, he reached up with his trembling right hand and tore open the heavy tactical velcro straps of his bruised body armor, letting the suffocating vest drop forward so he could finally draw a full breath of air.

"Aria...!!" shouted Alexander, his raw, deep voice echoing down the empty, ruined corridor as he gripped his bleeding thigh. "Are you alright?! Everything... everything is clear!"

Inside the fortified panic room, Aria’s fingers were frantically tearing at the high-tech console, her face streaked with tears as she finally managed to switch on the external two-way audio system. The monitor in front of her face displayed the main hallway, and her heart stopped as she saw the blinking red indicator lights of the breaching charges the mercenaries had left behind on the frame.

"Behind you...!!! Alex, get away from the door...!!!" shrieked Aria, her voice bursting through the hallway speakers in a wave of panic.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The three blocks of C4 detonated with an roar.

By misfortune, Alexander was resting against the wall adjacent to the blast radius. The sheer, terrifying concussive force of the explosion blew the reinforced steel door off its hinges and tore through the drywall like paper. The shockwave slammed directly into Alexander’s unprotected chest, launching his frame through the air like a ragdoll. He crashed into the far concrete pillar of the stairwell, his head bouncing sharply against the stone before he collapsed into the settling dust and debris, blind, deafened, and incapacitated.

Through the thick, choking cloud of drywall dust and gray smoke, a heavy chunk of debris shifted with a loud groan. The lead mercenary—the one who had ordered the breaching charges—scrambled out of the wreckage. His tactical uniform was torn, and blood was trickling down his temple, but his eyes were filled with a frantic, desperate survival instinct.

He kicked the warped, half-shattered steel door of the panic room entirely out of its frame. Reaching into the smoke, his rough hands grabbed Aria by her hair, dragging her screaming and coughing onto the debris-strewn floor boards.

"Get up, you little bitch!" growled the leader, his voice raspy from the smoke.

Aria was disoriented, the sheer volume of the blast leaving her ears ringing with a sharp, deafening buzz. As she was dragged across the threshold, her tear-filled eyes locked onto Alexander’s frame twitching in the rubble a few feet away. He was bleeding heavily from his shoulder and leg, his fingers weakly digging into the dust as he desperately tried to force his broken body up off the floor.

The mercenary leader stopped, noticed Alexander struggling to rise, and let out a cold, breathless laugh. He pulled a sidearm from his hip and pointed it directly at Alexander’s exposed back.

"Looks like your little savior couldn’t quite get the job done, huh?" said the leader, a wicked, sadistic grin breaking through the soot on his face.

BANG! BANG!

"Noooo!!!" shrieked Aria, her voice cracking in agonizing despair as she watched the high-caliber rounds tear directly into Alexander’s lower back.

Alexander let out a choked groan, his body tensing before slamming back down into the dirt, motionless. The mercenary chuckled, twisting his hand into Aria’s hair once more to drag her toward the grand staircase. "Move it! We’re leaving!"

BLAM!

A single gunshot echoed through the ruined hallway cutting the man’s words short. A heavy 9mm round drilled cleanly through the side of the mercenary’s skull, spraying dark crimson across the white drywall. His grip went slack, his lifeless body collapsing heavily down the first few steps of the stairs.

Aria tumbled to the floor, gasping for air as she looked up through the settling dust.

Standing at the top of the stairwell, her chest heaving in terror, was Victoria Kingsley. Her expensive black silk dress was covered in soot, her bare feet bleeding from the shattered glass on the steps, and both of her hands were shaking as she held a smoking, chrome-plated pistol she had scavenged from the courtyard. She had been utterly terrified by the apocalyptic sound of the C4 explosion from the car, forcing her to abandon his orders and sprint into the mansion to find them.

"Aria...!!" yelled Victoria, her dominant facade gone as she dropped the weapon and fell to her knees beside her trembling friend.