Chapter 71 Chapter 71
Hailey’s POV
I opened my mouth to scream again, but before any sound could escape, two guards rushed into the kitchen from the opposite entrance.
“Miss Hailey, step back!” one of them ordered, immediately moving to check Nina and the fallen guards.
I scrambled backward, my heart still hammering in my chest.
The guards knelt beside Nina and the others, checking their pulses and examining them carefully. One guard leaned in close to Nina’s face, sniffing, then pulled back sharply.
“Alcohol,” he said to his partner. “Someone made them unconscious by snuffing their noses with alcohol. This was deliberate.”
Tyler walking on us. Taking in the scene with a loud gasp.
“Sound the alarm,” the other guard said, reaching for his earpiece. “We have a breach.”
But before he could speak into it, Benita came rushing down the hallway, her face pale and panicked.
“Hailey!” she gasped, grabbing my arm. “We need to hide. Right now.”
“What? Why?” I asked, confused by the sudden urgency.
“I was complaining to Marco about Tyler’s weird behavior,” Benita said rapidly, the words tumbling out. “And he was stressed, stuck in traffic, but something I said made him suspicious. So I sent him a picture of Tyler, and Marco freaked out. He said Tyler is the guy who tried to kill Sophia. He said we need to hide immediately.”
The world seemed to tilt sideways. I stared at Tyler, who had gone very still, his expression shifting from fake concern to something colder.
“That’s ridiculous,” Tyler said, but his voice had changed, lost that friendly warmth. “I don’t know what Marco thinks he saw, but….”
“Shut up,” one of the guards snapped, his hand moving to his weapon. “Don’t move.”
At that moment, Sophia appeared in the doorway, and she was holding something small in her hand. The camera. The one that had fallen from Tyler’s bag.
“What did you need a small camera for?” Sophia demanded, looking directly at Tyler. “Considering you’re not teaching them any tech stuff.”
“Tyler doesn’t have any cameras,” I said automatically, then paused. “Wait. How do you even know about cameras, Sophia? How did you know he had one?”
Sophia’s face went pale, and I saw guilt flash across her features before she could hide it.
“I… I saw it in his bag earlier,” she stammered. “I was just..”
But before she could finish, one of the guards who’d been trying to use his earpiece spoke up, his voice tight with alarm.
“Our headpieces aren’t working,” he said. “None of them. Communications are down.”
A chill ran down my spine. First the unconscious staff, then Tyler being identified as dangerous, now communications failing. This wasn’t coincidence.
This was coordinated.
In the sudden silence that followed, I heard it. A sound that made my blood run cold.
Engines. Multiple engines, roaring closer.
And then, before anyone could react, a gunshot exploded somewhere in the house, the sound so loud it made me flinch violently.
“Get down!” one of the guards shouted, pushing me toward the floor.
But it was too late.
The sound of shattering glass and splintering wood erupted from multiple directions at once as cars burst through the compound gates. I could hear the screech of tires, the crash of vehicles ramming through barriers, and then the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire.
Bullets sprayed through windows, tearing through walls, ricocheting off surfaces with deadly precision. The chandelier in the entrance hall exploded in a shower of crystal. Wood splintered from the doorframes. Plaster dust filled the air as rounds punched through the walls.
“Move! Move!” the guard was shouting, trying to drag me toward cover.
But there was so much noise, so much chaos. Gunfire from outside, screaming from somewhere in the house, the crash of more vehicles breaking through.
Benita grabbed my arm, and we stumbled together toward the hallway, the guards forming a protective barrier around us.
Through the confusion, I saw Tyler making a break for the back entrance, running low and fast.
“Stop him!” one of the guards shouted, but more gunfire erupted, forcing everyone to take cover.
Sophia had disappeared. I didn’t know if she’d run or been hit or what. Everything was happening too fast.
“This way!” Benita screamed, pulling me around a corner just as bullets chewed up the wall where we’d been standing.
We ran down the hallway, my pregnant belly making me slower, clumsier. Behind us, I could hear shouting in different languages, the sound of men pouring into the house.
“Where’s my mother?” I gasped, terror for Barbara overwhelming everything else. “We have to find her!”
“The panic room!” one of the guards yelled. “We need to get everyone to the panic room!”
But I didn’t even know where the panic room was. And with communications down, how would we coordinate? How would we find everyone?
Another explosion rocked the house, this one closer. A grenade or a bomb or something equally destructive. The floor shook beneath our feet.
“Keep moving!” the guard ordered, practically dragging Benita and me now.
We burst into a sitting room, and I saw one of the maids cowering behind a couch. Her name was Maria, and she looked absolutely terrified.
“Come on!” I shouted to her. “Come with us!”
She scrambled out from her hiding place and joined our desperate flight through the house.
More gunfire. More explosions. The sound of men shouting orders to each other, hunting through the rooms.