Chapter 4 - The Darkness
"What the hell?" Marcus yelled, completely distracted by the sudden, absolute darkness that had swallowed the mansion.
I did not waste a single millisecond of the opportunity that Maria had just handed to me.
I threw my entire body forward, launching myself off the marble floor and tackling Marcus forcefully by the waist.
The heavy tactical pistol went off as we collided, the suppressed shot hitting the expensive drywall with a dull, terrifying thud.
We crashed onto the hard marble floor together, a violent tangle of limbs, desperation, and pure fury.
"Julian, grab Leo's hand and run to the kitchen right now!" I screamed at the top of my lungs into the pitch-black void.
I heard the frantic, tiny footsteps of my sons scrambling away into the darkness, fueled by the sheer terror in my voice.
Marcus was a highly trained former military contractor, but he was fighting for a paycheck, while I was a father fighting for the lives of his children.
He threw a brutal punch that connected with my jaw, sending a blinding flash of white light across my vision.
I tasted warm copper in my mouth, but the pain only fueled the primal, animalistic adrenaline surging through my veins.
I grappled blindly in the dark, my fingers desperately searching for the weapon he had dropped during our fall.
My hand brushed against the cold metal of the gun, but Marcus kicked it away, sending it sliding across the slick floor out of our reach.
He managed to flip us over, pinning me down with his heavy knees pressing sharply into my chest, cutting off my air supply.
His hands found my throat, his strong fingers digging into my windpipe with lethal, practiced precision.
I gagged, black spots dancing in my eyes as my lungs screamed for oxygen in the suffocating darkness of the hallway.
I reached my arms up, my hands frantically searching the top of the decorative pedestal we had knocked over during the struggle.
My fingers wrapped around the thick base of a heavy, imported ceramic vase that Clara had bought on our honeymoon in Italy.
I swung it upward with every remaining ounce of strength in my exhausted body, smashing it directly into the side of Marcus's head.
The expensive ceramic shattered into a dozen jagged pieces, and Marcus let out a low, guttural groan.
His grip on my throat immediately loosened, and his massive body went entirely limp, collapsing heavily onto the floor beside me.
I gasped violently for air, coughing and clutching my bruised throat as I rolled away from his unconscious form.
I scrambled to my feet in the dark, my legs shaking uncontrollably from the violent adrenaline dump.
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I didn't have time to check if Marcus was dead or just knocked out; I only had one single objective left.
I had to find my sons before Beatrice did.
