Chapter 5 - The Night of the Cast Iron
The clock in the main hall chimed twice.
Ding. Ding.
The heavy, metallic echoes died away into the dark, silent corridors of the mansion.
Two floors above, in his dark study, Dominic sat behind his desk. He was staring at a live video monitor that displayed Elena’s bedroom. He couldn't sleep. Ever since Ellie had mentioned the reassigned guards and the library lock three weeks ago, a deep, toxic seed of suspicion had been growing in his chest.
He reached out to tap the intercom button to call his security chief, but the line gave off a high-pitched, dead signal.
The wire had been cut.
Dominic’s blood ran cold. He reached into his desk drawer, his fingers wrapping around the grip of his heavy, custom Kimber .45 pistol.
On the monitor screen in front of him, the door to Elena’s bedroom slowly creaked open.
A tall, masked figure wearing dark tactical gear slipped through the doorway.
Dominic watched in utter, paralyzed horror as the intruder pulled a long, narrow hunting blade from his coat, moving toward the bed where Elena lay asleep beneath her pale blue blankets.
Dominic slammed his fist against the intercom, but the dead signal mocked him. He threw himself out of his chair, pulling his gun, and sprinted toward the door.
On the screen, the intruder reached the edge of Elena's rug, raising the blade high above his head.
Then, a second shadow exploded into the frame.
Ellie Whitfield charged through the dark doorway like a freight train made of determination and raw, unfiltered fury. She was still wearing her nightgown and her flour-dusted canvas apron, her thick brown hair wild around her shoulders.
In her right hand, raised high above her head, was a heavy, twelve-inch Lodge cast-iron skillet—a nine-pound slab of solid black metal she had taken from the kitchen stove.
CRACK!
The iron skillet struck the intruder’s wrist with the sickening sound of snapping bone.
The knife flew out of the attacker's hand, clattering uselessly across the hardwood floor and spinning under the vanity table.
The intruder howled in agony, stumbling backward, but Ellie didn't give him a single second to recover. She planted her sturdy feet into the rug, swung her hips, and brought the iron skillet around in a terrifying horizontal arc.
BANG!
The heavy iron caught the man squarely across the side of his head, cracking his tactical mask and sending him crashing sideways into the nightstand, shattering a crystal lamp into a thousand glittering pieces.
Elena woke up with a sharp, terrified gasp, sitting up in bed, clutching her blanket to her chest. "Ellie?!"
The intruder groaned on the floor, trying to scramble backward toward the door on his elbows.
Ellie stepped over him, her broad frame completely blocking the path to Elena’s bed. She raised the heavy skillet above her head once more, her face red, her chest heaving, her dark eyes blazing with an ancient, maternal rage.
"You come one inch closer to her," Ellie shouted, her voice trembling with adrenaline but carrying the force of a thunderclap, "and I swear I’ll introduce you to every pan in that kitchen!"
The heavy mahogany doors flew open.
Dominic burst into the room, his .45 raised, six armed guards rushing in right behind him with drawn weapons.
The sight that greeted them stopped every man in his tracks.
Elena was safe in her bed. The intruder lay bleeding and broken on the floor, his wrist unnaturally bent, groaning in agony. And standing over him, covered in flour and sweat, was the plus-size maid, holding a bloody cast-iron skillet like a battleaxe.
Dominic rushed to the bedside, throwing his arm around his sister. "Elena! Are you hurt?!"
"I'm fine!" Elena gasped, tears pouring down her cheeks as she pointed at Ellie. "Ellie... Ellie hit him!"
Dominic turned his eyes toward the floor. He stepped over the broken glass, grabbed the intruder by his collar, and violently tore the dark tactical mask from his face.
The young, bloodied face of Mason Rourke stared back up at him.
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Dominic felt as though the floor had vanished beneath his feet. "Mason... God in heaven... why?"
Mason sobbed, clutching his broken wrist to his chest. "Victor... Victor made me do it, Don Dominic! He... he cut the main power! He’s clearing the Zurich accounts right now! He said... he said if I killed Elena, you’d burn the city down and he could walk away with the money!"
