After a few frozen seconds, adrenaline kicked in. I leapt off the chaise in my reading nook and raced out of my bedroom. I had to get to the panic room. I didn’t have a weapon of my own; women in my family weren’t allowed guns. All my life, I’d lived in a cage of ice, tormented by my parents’ cold indifference but sheltered from the worst aspects of our criminal enterprise.
I wasn’t prepared for an attack on my home. Especially not when I was alone, my parents dead and my brother god knew where. The booming gunfire and screams of dying men told me that our guards were defending the house. I wasn’t sure if they could hold their own against whatever—whoever—was coming at us. At me.
My heart hammered in my chest as my bare feet pounded the polished wooden floorboards, the sound of my frantic flight completely overwhelmed by the onslaught of impending death that seemed to shake the foundations of my house. Or maybe I was the one shaking. My teeth clicked together, and I clenched my jaw hard enough to ache.
Terror clogged my throat, and my mind raced faster than my feet. I was the only member of the Vera family in this house. Were our enemies coming for me? I was no one, the quiet little mouse of a younger sister to a brash, pampered prince of a brother.
If the men assaulting my home thought to grab me and use me as leverage, they didn’t know Daniel at all. My brother wouldn’t give up anything for me. If our enemies got to me, I was as good as dead, no matter what their initial intentions. Daniel would rather I died than pay any price for my life. He would have to find someone else to torment for his amusement, but he’d always been good at hurting people. I would be easily replaceable.
No one would save me. No one cared enough to notice if I lived or died.
I could only rely on myself for survival.
My jaw firmed with determination. I fled through the darkened, opulent ballroom where my father had hosted his most lavish events, showing off our staggering wealth to impress his allies. The polished marble floor was cold and slick beneath my feet, and I skidded with a shriek when the front door to the house was breached with a deafening boom!
The bursts of gunfire entered the cavernous front hall, echoing all the way through the east wing to reach me as I rushed for the panic room. If I could lock myself inside before the attackers caught me, I would be safe. My brother would come eventually. Not to save me, but to reclaim his territory. Daniel was proud and preening by nature, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to take control of our estate for long.
For once, I wished for my sadistic brother’s presence.
I shook my head sharply to throw off the desperate thought. I was alone, but I would survive this. Whatever was happening, I would make it through the assault. I just had to get to the concrete stairs leading down to the basement. Oxygen sawed into my lungs on each heaving breath, my heart burning with the strain of its rapid-fire beats.
My feet nearly slid out from under me as I flung my body around the corner, but I managed to right myself and continue sprinting down the final stretch of hallway leading to safety. I was so close. So close…
“Isabel!” The deep, masculine voice thundered my name over the blasts of gunfire. “Wait for me!”
I shot a terrified glance over my shoulder, then increased my pace. Arturo Flores was on my heels, the older man’s teeth bared beneath his bushy gray moustache. Usually, he was pompous and meticulously composed. Now, the hitch in his desperate shout betrayed his fear.
Whoever was attacking my home hadn’t come for me; they had come for him. I didn’t know what he was doing in my house, but once the assailants got what they wanted, they would leave me alone. Arturo was closely allied with my family, but he’d barely spared me a contemptuous glance in the past. I was no one to the cartel, completely insignificant. But Arturo was important, one of the inner circle. He must’ve brought these wolves to our door.
They could tear him apart for all I cared. The man was bloodthirsty and ruthless.
The last thing I wanted was to be trapped with the monster in my panic room.
Fresh air was acid in my burning lungs by the time I finally reached the basement stairs. Not wasting time to turn on the light, I stumbled my way down the concrete steps. The basement floor was cool beneath my soles, and I sucked in a gasping breath as I fumbled for the keypad set into the thick concrete wall. I slapped the metallic buttons, and they illuminated to cast an eerie green glow through the cramped space at the bottom of the stairs.