Chapter 9 - The Final Reckoning
The end came in the winter.
It was a cold, bitter night, the kind that reminded them of the night in Suite 404.
Vance, the investor, had returned. He hadn't been intimidated; he had been biding his time. He had recruited a group of disillusioned, desperate men, men who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by destroying the man who had ruined their lives.
They attacked the mansion.
They had better weapons, better planning, and more men than the previous groups.
The battle lasted for hours.
Dominic was out of bullets, out of options. He was cornered in the library, the very room where he had once held a gun to a doctor’s head.
He was losing.
He thought of Leo. He thought of Claire.
He closed his eyes, preparing for the end.
Then, the library door swung open.
Claire walked in, holding a handheld detonator.
“I wired the cellar,” she said, her voice steady. “The explosives were hidden in the floorboards. If they want to take this house, they can take it with them.”
The men attacking him froze.
Vance stepped forward, laughing. “You won't do it, nurse. You’re a healer.”
“I am a nurse,” Claire said. “And I know that sometimes, you have to cut away the infection to save the life.”
She pressed the button.
The cellar exploded, the force of the blast shaking the entire mansion. The shockwave knocked everyone to the ground.
When the dust cleared, the attackers were fleeing, terrified by the sheer, cold determination of the woman they had underestimated.
Vance was trapped, his legs pinned under a fallen beam.
Dominic walked over to him, picking up his rifle.
He didn't kill him.
He called the police.
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“Take him,” Dominic said. “And take everything he has. Every cent, every document, every scrap of power.”
When the police arrived, they found a shattered mansion, a captured criminal, and a family that refused to break.
