The marble hallways of the Ardent Mansion no longer felt like a ho; they felt like the stone intestines of a slaughterhouse.
As the guards hurried Victoria down the grand eastern staircase, she looked over the gilded banister and froze. Below, three of her standard estate security n were throwing their entire body weight against the heavy oak double doors of the main foyer. Their boots skidded uselessly on the polished floor. Through the reinforced wood, a rhythmic, chanical thudding vibrated—the sound of an industrial ram hitting the hinges.
In the shadows of the adjacent dining room, the normal house staff—the maids, the cooks, the elderly butler who had served her family for a decade—were cramd under tables and behind mahogany cabinets. They were huddled together like livestock, their muffled sobs cut through by the sharp, tallic clicks of weapons being readied outside.
Victoria stopped on the landing, her hand clutching the stone rail until her fingers went numb. "The staff..." She choked on the words. She wanted to yell for them, to help them, but her own helplessness tasted like ash in her mouth. All she could do was clench her jaw until her teeth ached, forced to watch them drown in the dark.
The leader of the guards— had put in charge of her safety —snapped his head around, his eyes fierce. He gripped her shoulder with a gloved hand, forcing her forward.
"Move! We don't have ti," he hissed, his voice stripped of any diplomacy. "They are about to breach. We stay here, we all end up in a ditch." He didn't wait for her approval. He jerked his chin toward one of his operators. "Vance, check the lower periter exits. Go."
The operator detached from the unit, moving like a ghost down the service corridor.
A split second later, the grand foyer doors didn't just open—they exploded inward. The massive oak panels splintered into jagged spears under the force of a breaching charge, crushing the three security n beneath the weight of the timber.
"Cover!" the leader roared.
The guards moved with terrifying fluidity. Two guards slamd Victoria against the concrete pillar of the staircase, using their own armored torsos as human shields. The other three dropped to their knees, raising their rifles in perfect synchronization.
Three n stepped through the smoke of the breach. They wore heavy tactical gear, but their helts bore the distinct, crude spray-painted green marker of the Petrova syndicate.
Tat-tat-tat.
The gunfire from guards was a short, surgical burst. Three rounds. Three impacts. The bullets punched clean through the visors of the intruders, dropping them instantly into the rubble.
Then—nothing. Silence.
The leader kept his rifle leveled at the smoke, his brow furrowed behind his goggles. "Just three? Where are the rest of—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
From the darkness of the courtyard, a small, matte-black cylinder arched through the ruined doorway, rolling across the marble floor with a hollow, tallic clink-clink-clink.
"GRENADE! GET DOWN!" the leader scread, lunging over the banister to pin Victoria to the steps.
In the corner, one of the young houseboys—a kid no older than nineteen who usually cleared the dinner tables—panicked. Driven by pure, desperate adrenaline, he scrambled out from under a couch and lunged for the rolling cylinder, his hands outstretched to throw it back out the door.
He caught it. But he was too late.
The blast didn't just kill him; it dissolved him. The concussive force tore his arms away first, before the shrapnel shredded his torso, scattering his remains across the pristine white walls of the hall. The shockwave blew out the surrounding cabinets, killing four other staff mbers hiding nearby, their bodies thrown like ragdolls into the dark pools of rising water on the floor.
Victoria's ears rang with a deafening, high-pitched whine. Through the smoke, she could see the crimson spray dripping down the family portraits. The sheer, unadulterated gore of the scene stripped the air from her lungs. She couldn't scream. Her jaw just hung open, her mind fracturing under the weight of what she was witnessing.
The guard leader pushed himself up, wiping a sar of soone else's blood from his face. He looked at the carnage, then at his remaining n.
"Fuck," he spat. "Two with . The rest of you, move forward and draw their fire. Distract them."
The operators didn't hesitate. They nodded in sync, their faces grim, and pushed into the smoke, their rifles barking as more shadows began to pour through the broken front doors.
"Madam Ardent, look at ," the leader commanded, shaking Victoria's shoulder until her glassy eyes locked onto his. "We are moving. Now."
Before they could take a step, Vance, the guard sent to check the periter, burst out of the side hallway. His uniform was torn, his breath ragged.
"All exits are blocked," Vance reported, his voice tight. "They've got teams covering the courtyard, the garage, and the eastern garden. We're boxed in."
The leader's chest heaved as the sound of the distracting gunfire intensified from the foyer. "Fuck ee. We're going to have to move past Post One."
As if on cue, the heavy thud of combat boots echoed from the main entrance. The distraction team was falling back; the Petrova n were entering in force. A hail of stray bullets chipped away at the plaster above their heads, raining white dust down on Victoria's hair.
The leader took a deep, steadying breath, his tactical mind calculating the geotry of their survival in seconds. He looked at Vance. "Which exit has the least amount of n?"
Vance checked his tactical wrist-monitor, which was tied to the mansion's remaining internal sensors. "The one on the left side of the master bedroom. It leads to the old servant's stairwell. There are only two bodies covering that sector."
The leader checked his magazine, slamming it back into the well with a loud clack.
"Ok," he said, turning his cold gaze toward the upper floor. "So here is the plan."
A/N
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