Mason's POV
The first bullet punched through the wall.
THWACK.
Wood splinters sprayed. Mason shoved Lisa and Grant to the floor behind the heavy cast-iron stove. "Stay down!"
He crawled to the window. The men were advancing up the hill in a line, using the trees for cover. They were methodical. Professional. This wasn't a gang; it was a tactical squad.
Another bullet zipped through the window, shattering the glass above his head.
They were sitting ducks. The shack was a wooden coffin on a hilltop. The cliff at the back was a straight drop of two hundred feet onto jagged rocks.
No way out.
Mason's eyes swept the room. The stove. The table. The chair. The burning embers of the legal agreement. Aldrich's pen, left on the floor.
His gaze stopped on the leather briefcase, still on the table.
An idea clicked. A desperate, dangerous idea.
He snatched the briefcase. It was high-quality, hard-sided. He popped the latches and dumped the remaining papers out. He ran to the stove, used the chair leg to scoop hot embers from the fire, and dumped them inside the empty briefcase. He grabbed the few dry newspapers, crumpled them, and stuffed them on top of the embers. Smoke began to curl out.
"What are you doing?" Grant yelled over another gunshot.
"Making a new door," Mason said.
He slammed the briefcase shut, but didn't latch it. The smoke thickened, seeping from the seams. He ran to the back wall of the shack, the one facing the steep cliff. He put the smoking briefcase on the floor against the wall.
"Get ready to run," he said to Lisa and Grant.
"Run where? There's a cliff!" Lisa cried.
"Trust me."
Mason took three steps back. He aimed his handgun at the briefcase. He prayed it wasn't fireproof.
He fired.
The bullet tore through the leather and metal. It struck the hot embers inside.
The oxygen hit the glowing fire. The crumpled newspaper ignited.
WHOOSH.
A jet of flame erupted from the bullet hole. Then the briefcase exploded. Not a bomb explosion a blast of burning fuel, papers, and superheated air. The force blew a jagged, smoking hole right through the back wall of the shack, exposing the gray morning sky and the steep drop beyond.
But it wasn't just a hole. The explosion and fire had shattered the old, rotten wood. A large section of the back wall was now weak, burning, and hanging loose over the cliff edge.
"Go! Now! Across that!" Mason yelled, pointing at the burning, broken wall.
Lisa stared in terror. It was a death sentence.
"It's a bridge!" Mason shouted. "It leads to the ledge!"
He could see it from his angle. The explosion hadn't just blown a hole; it had sheared the wall in such a way that a long, plank-like section was now slanting downwards, touching a narrow, rocky ledge about fifteen feet below the cliff top. A ledge that ran sideways along the cliff face, out of view from the mercenaries on the other side of the hill.
The wood was on fire, but it was their only path.
Grant understood first. He grabbed Lisa's hand. "Like a slide! Go!"
Lisa scrambled up, driven by pure fear. She ran at the burning hole, jumped onto the slanted, smoking plank, and slid down it on her stomach, disappearing over the edge. Grant followed right behind her.
Mason heard boots stomping on the front porch. The mercenaries were at the door.
He took one last look at the front of the shack. He could see a man's shadow through the crack in the door. He raised his gun and fired three quick shots through the wood.
A cry of pain. The shadow fell back.
Mason turned and sprinted for the back. He leaped onto the burning plank. Heat seared through his pants. He slid down, the world tipping, the cliff face rushing up.
He landed hard on the narrow ledge, rolling to a stop next to Lisa and Grant. Above them, the burning plank collapsed, falling into the abyss in a shower of sparks.
They were on a ledge no wider than a bookshelf, clinging to the cliff face. Two hundred feet of nothing below them. But they were out of the shack.
Voices shouted above. "Where'd they go? Check the back!"
A head appeared over the cliff edge, looking down. Mason pressed himself and the others flat against the rock. The mercenary looked right at the empty spot where the wall had been, saw only the long drop, and pulled back.
"They're not back here! Must've gone out the front before we closed in!"
The voices moved away, confused.
They had a minute, maybe two.
The ledge. Mason looked to his left. It ended in a pile of rubble after twenty feet. To his right, it narrowed but continued around a curve in the cliff.
"This way," he whispered. "Move slowly. Don't look down."
They shuffled along the ledge like crabs, their backs against the cold rock. The wind tugged at them. One slip was all it would take.
After a terrifying fifty yards, the ledge widened into a small, hidden cave-like overhang. It was littered with old animal bones and brush. And there, nearly hidden, was a crack in the cliff face—the entrance to a steep, natural chimney leading down.
It wasn't a path. It was a climb.
"Down there," Mason said. "It goes to the bottom."
"I can't," Lisa whispered, her eyes glued to the dizzying drop.
"You can. For Tessa." Mason locked eyes with her. "She wouldn't give up. Don't you."
Lisa bit her lip, nodded. Mason went first, bracing his back against one side of the chimney and his feet against the other, inching downward. Grant followed his method. Lisa came last, her eyes squeezed shut.
It took an hour of painful, terrifying descent. But they reached the bottom, collapsing onto a rocky creek bed, bruised and exhausted but alive.
They were at the base of the mountain, miles from the shack. The hunt was still on, but they had vanished.
For two days, they moved only at night, surviving on stream water and protein bars. Mason led them on a winding route out of the national forest. Finally, they reached the outskirts of a small, remote town. They broke into an empty, for-sale cabin on the edge of town to rest and plan.
They were safe. For now.
The next morning, while Grant tried to find a working radio, Lisa sorted through the pile of old mail left on the cabin's kitchen counter by the realtor. Junk flyers, coupons.
"Mason," she said quietly.
He looked over. She was holding a crisp, cream-colored envelope. It was addressed to "Resident" but it was fancy. Thick paper. She opened it and pulled out a card.
Gold edges. Shiny black ink.
You are cordially invited to a Conservation Gala,
in honor of our pristine wilderness.
Hosted by Victor Sterling.
At the Sterling Peak Estate.
This Saturday night. Black Tie.
On the back, handwritten in elegant script, was a note:
"A celebration of life. All lives are precious, are they not? Do come. Let's talk conservation. - V.S."
It was a taunt. An invitation to the lion's den. Victor knew they were out here. He was mocking them, confident they were too weak, too hunted, to dare come near him.
Mason took the invitation. He didn't see a trap. He saw a target.
"We're going," he said.
"What? It's a trap!" Grant said. "He'll have every guard he owns there!"
"I know," Mason said, a cold plan forming in his mind. "That's why he won't expect me to walk in the front door. Everyone will be looking for a man hiding in the woods. Not a soldier in a dress uniform."
"You can't just go in there alone," Lisa said.
"I won't be alone," Mason said. He looked at the invitation. This was their chance. The evidence they had the flash drive, the video was digital. It could be sent. But to truly destroy Victor, he needed to expose him in front of the powerful people who protected him. At his own party.
He needed his team.
He hadn't called them yet. It was too dangerous, and he didn't want to drag them into his war. But now, he had no choice.
He found an old, pre-paid cell phone in a kitchen drawer. Probably left by the construction crew. It had a little battery left.
He dialed a number from memory. A number he hadn't called in two years. It rang three times.
A rough, familiar voice answered. "Who is this?"
Mason took a breath. "It's Mason. I'm calling in the marker."
There was a long silence on the other end. Then the voice came back, low and serious. "Where do you need us, brother?"
Mason gave them the name of the town. "Bring the good suits. We're going to a party."
He hung up. Help was coming. His Delta Force team. The only people he trusted with his life.
For the first time since Tessa died, he didn't feel like prey. He felt like a soldier with a mission.
He looked at the gala invitation again. Saturday night. Two days away.
Victor Sterling wanted to play hunter at his fancy party.
Mason would give him a war.
they escaped the siege using the burning briefcase and the cliff ledge.
Mason has called in his team and is planning to walk into the gala.