The estate had been designed to survive an attack.
Sean Brennan had helped design its security.
That meant he knew exactly how to break it.
"How many?" I asked.
"Six, maybe eight," Luke said.
Emma pressed a towel against his shoulder.
"Bullet went through."
"Can you move your arm?"
"Enough."
I looked toward the hallway.
"Where are our men?"
"East wing. Sean locked internal security doors."
My chair suddenly felt like a cage again.
Two years earlier, I would have been moving through the house with a weapon.
Now every staircase was a wall.
Every narrow doorway was a tactical problem.
Sean knew that.
Emma looked at me.
"What's the plan?"
"You go to the safe room."
"We already discussed this."
"This isn't a discussion."
Her eyes hardened.
I stopped.
Ask.
Don't order.
It seemed absurd in the middle of an attack.
But it mattered.
"Emma, please."
She shook her head.
"If Sean came because of my father, I'm part of this."
"That's exactly why—"
"He already tried to kill me. Hiding isn't going to make him stop."
Luke looked between us.
"She's got a point."
"Nobody asked you."
"I've known you twenty years. Nobody ever asks me."
Despite everything, Emma almost smiled.
We moved through a service corridor toward the security hub.
Luke knew an override.
Halfway there, voices echoed ahead.
We ducked into an unused bedroom.
I hated how slowly I moved.
Emma noticed.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Look at yourself like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're the problem."
I looked away.
She crouched in front of me.
"Your chair isn't why they're here."
"No. Me being weak is."
Emma's expression hardened.
"You're the strongest person in this house when you stop trying to prove it."
I stared at her.
"Terrible timing for therapy."
"You're welcome."
Luke opened the service panel.
We regained partial camera access.
Sean appeared on one monitor.
He stood in my study.
My study.
He poured himself bourbon.
Rage came quickly.
Luke grabbed my shoulder.
"That's what he wants."
"What?"
"You angry."
Sean looked directly at the camera.
Then he lifted his glass.
He knew we were watching.
The intercom crackled.
"Danny."
His voice filled the house.
"Been a long time."
I activated the microphone.
"Not long enough."
Sean laughed.
"You always did need the last word."
"You murdered Robert Carter."
Emma went still.
Sean's smile disappeared.
"So Cal finally talked."
"You ordered Viktor to shoot me."
"I ordered him to kill you. Apparently, good help is hard to find."
Luke's jaw tightened.
"Sean."
There was silence.
Then Sean's face changed.
"Hey, big brother."
Luke leaned toward the microphone.
"Why?"
"You really have to ask?"
"Yes."
"You spent your entire life behind him."
Sean pointed toward the camera.
"Danny got everything. Money. Respect. Power. You got to be his loyal dog. And I got to be your little brother."
"You killed a man over jealousy?"
"I killed several."
Emma flinched.
I took her hand.
Sean continued.
"But Danny survived. Then I realized I didn't need to kill him. Look what happened."
He smiled.
"I gave him a wheelchair and he destroyed himself."
That landed.
Because it was true.
For two years, Sean barely needed to touch me.
I had done the work.
I had pushed everyone away.
Stopped living.
Stopped looking.
Sean had stolen my legs.
I had handed him everything else.
Not anymore.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Emma."
"No."
Emma squeezed my hand.
Sean laughed.
"See? That's the problem. The maid woke you up."
"Her name is Emma."
"Exactly."
He gave us five minutes.
Emma was supposed to meet him in the study.
Alone.
Obviously, she wasn't going.
Instead, we used the five minutes.
Luke contacted police through an independent emergency transmitter.
I contacted two teams stationed outside the property.
Emma studied the floor plan.
Then she pointed at the old dumbwaiter shaft.
"This goes behind the study."
I looked at her.
"How do you know?"
"I clean this house, remember?"
She knew routes my armed men didn't.
Cleaning closets.
Service corridors.
Laundry passages.
The invisible architecture used by people wealthy families rarely noticed.
For months, everyone had treated Emma like the least powerful person in the estate.
Now she knew the building better than the men invading it.
We made a plan.
It was dangerous.
I hated it.
Emma insisted.
At the five-minute mark, she entered the study.
Sean turned.
"There she is."
I watched through a hidden camera.
Emma kept her hands visible.
"You killed my father."
"He should've stayed gone."
"You made me think he abandoned us."
"No. He did that himself."
"You're lying."
Sean stepped closer.
That was what we needed.
Emma continued talking.
"You were afraid of Daniel."
Sean laughed.
"Daniel?"
"You shot him from a rooftop because you weren't brave enough to face him."
His smile vanished.
"Careful."
"Then you waited two years while he suffered because you still weren't brave enough."
Sean grabbed her arm.
Every instinct in me screamed.
Luke held me back.
"Wait."
Sean pulled Emma closer.
"You think he loves you?"
Emma didn't answer.
"He doesn't know how."
That hurt because it had once been true.
Maybe part of it still was.
Then Emma said, "He's learning."
That was the signal.
Luke opened the security doors.
Our men entered from the east corridor.
Sean spun.
Emma drove her heel into his foot and broke away.
Gunfire erupted.
I moved through the service entrance.
Sean saw me.
For one second, the room froze.
He raised his weapon.
So did I.
Then Luke stepped between us.
"Sean!"
Sean hesitated.
That hesitation saved my life.
Our security team tackled him.
The weapon skidded away.
Luke stood over his younger brother.
Sean looked up.
"You choose him again."
Luke's face twisted.
"No."
He looked toward Emma.
"I'm choosing the people you tried to kill."
Police sirens approached.
It was over.
Almost.
Viktor was still missing.
Sean smiled from the floor.
"You think this ends with me?"
My stomach tightened.
"What did you do?"
He laughed.
"Ask the maid where her mother is."
Emma went white.
She grabbed her phone.
Lakeshore Memory Center called at that exact moment.
Emma answered.
"Hello?"
Her expression collapsed.
"What do you mean she's gone?"
I felt ice enter my veins.
Margaret Carter had disappeared from the facility twenty minutes earlier.
Security footage showed her leaving with a man wearing medical scrubs.
Viktor Soren.
The same sniper who killed her husband.
The same sniper who put me in a wheelchair.
And now he had Emma's mother.