Chapter 174
Chapter 174:
She didn’t tell him to stop. She said nothing about the law or justice. The law had failed her. Hilliard had failed her.
She nodded.
“Finish it p>
The iron gates of the English Estate were masterpieces of wrought iron — twelve feet high, topped with gold-leaf spikes. They had been designed to keep the world out.
They were not designed to stop a five-ton armored SUV moving at sixty miles per hour.
𝘜р𝗱𝖺𝘁еs 𝘦v𝘦r𝗒 𝗐𝗲е𝘬 o𝗻 𝗴𝗮𝗹ոo𝘷е𝗹ѕ.𝘤o𝗆
The night air shattered with the sound of twisting metal. The gates buckled and flew off their hinges with a groan of steel. The SUV didn’t slow. It plowed over the debris, headlights cut, running dark. Two black vans followed in its wake like sharks trailing a whale.
Security guards poured out of the gatehouse, fumbling for their weapons. “Halt! Stop the vehicle p>
The side door of the first van slid open.
Flash. Bang.
Flashbangs rolled across the driveway. The world turned white, then deafeningly silent. The guards dropped to their knees, clutching their ears, blinded. Before any of them could recover, zip-ties were cinched around their wrists and they were dragged into the bushes — efficient, silent, gone.
Kegan kicked open the front door of the mansion. The wood splintered around the lock.
Gregg English was in the foyer, a crystal glass of scotch in his hand and a velvet smoking jacket on his shoulders. He looked up, his mouth falling open.
“Who are you? I’ll call the police!” he stammered, backing away.
Kegan didn’t break stride. He crossed the foyer in four steps and pistol-whipped the older man across the face.
Crack.
Gregg spun and fell, blood spraying from his split lip onto the marble floor.
“The police work for you,” Kegan said calmly. “I don’t p>
From the hallway, mercenaries dragged Victoria English and Charla into the room. Charla had arrived by taxi just minutes earlier, fleeing the parking garage before the police could secure the scene, certain she was safe here.
She screamed when she saw Kegan.
“You touched Cailin,” he said, circling them slowly, a predator in no hurry. “You touched Elia p>
“It was a mistake! We can pay!” Gregg pleaded from the floor, clutching his jaw. “How much? Ten million? Twenty p>
“Money is useless to a dead man,” Kegan said.
He signaled his men. “Take them to the balcony p>
“No! No!” Charla shrieked, kicking and clawing as they hauled her toward the grand staircase.
Kegan paused at the landing. On the wall hung a massive oil painting of the English family — Gregg, Victoria, and Charla, looking regal and untouchable. He drove the butt of his gun through the canvas, tearing Charla’s face cleanly out of the portrait.
Outside, a sleek sedan pulled through the broken gates. Cailin stepped out.
She walked through the destruction without hurrying. She stepped over the zip-tied guards without looking down. Her arm throbbed, but her heart was cold.
She wasn’t here to stop anything. She wanted to watch.
Upstairs, on the third-floor balcony, Kegan’s men were knotting climbing ropes around the ankles of the English family.