Chapter 6 - The Road to the Eagle’s Nest
The mountain air was thin and freezing,
biting at my skin as the motorcycle roared up the winding path.
I had left my men behind.
This wasn't a job for an army;
this was a job for a ghost.
Ricardo would have cameras on every main road,
sensors in the trees,
and snipers on the ridges.
But I knew these mountains.
I had hunted here as a boy,
long before I became the King of Stonebridge.
I ditched the bike a mile from the villa and moved through the brush,
my movements silent and fluid.
I was wearing a tactical suit,
black on black,
blending into the shadows of the pines.
The Eagle’s Nest was a fortress of glass and stone,
perched on the edge of a five-hundred-foot cliff.
It was beautiful and terrifying,
just like the man who owned it.
I saw the guards patrolling the perimeter,
their breath visible in the moonlight.
There were at least twenty of them.
I didn't care.
I could have faced a thousand and still walked forward.
I reached the outer wall and scaled it with the ease of a man possessed.
Once inside the courtyard,
I moved from shadow to shadow,
taking out the guards one by one.
A snap of the neck.
A blade to the heart.
A silenced shot to the skull.
I was a wraith,
a nightmare made flesh.
I reached the main glass doors and saw him.
Ricardo was sitting in a high-backed leather chair,
a glass of scotch in one hand.
And Sofia was there,
sitting on a stool beside him,
her stuffed rabbit back in her arms.
She looked brave,
but I could see the way her small shoulders shook.
"You can't hide from him,"
she was saying to Ricardo,
her voice surprisingly steady.
"My Daddy is the wolf."
"And wolves always find the sheep."
Ricardo laughed,
a sound that grated on my nerves like sandpaper.
"Your daddy is a dead man walking,
little girl."
"He's probably burning in the distillery right now."
I stepped out of the shadows and onto the patio,
the moonlight catching the silver of my ring.
"The wolf is here,
Ricardo,"
I said,
my voice low and lethal.
He froze,
the glass of scotch slipping from his hand and shattering on the floor.
Sofia’s head whipped around,
and her face lit up with a joy that could have powered the sun.
"Daddy!"
she screamed.
Ricardo reached for the gun on the table,
but I was faster.
I fired once,
the bullet shattering the glass door and grazing his shoulder.
He fell back,
howling in pain.
"Stay where you are,"
I commanded,
May you like
stepping through the broken glass.
"Or the next one goes between your eyes."
