Chapter 6 - The InfernoThe heat radiating from the blazing porch hit the windshield of the armored SUV like a physical blow. The flames gnawed hungrily at the historic wood of my mother’s estate, spiraling upward toward the second-story windows.
"Call 911! Tell them we have a structure fire and an active shooter on the premises!" my father barked, slamming the SUV into reverse.
"Active shooter?" I gasped, fumbling for my phone on the floorboard. "Dad, the man had a crowbar—"
"I don't care what he had. I need a SWAT response, and I need it two minutes ago," my father said, his eyes scanning the treeline as he whipped the heavy vehicle backward down the long driveway, putting a safe distance between us and the growing inferno.
I dialed the emergency number with shaking fingers, screaming the address and my father’s exact words to the dispatcher.
Through the rain, my father spotted something. A flash of movement near the iron gates. A dark sedan was parked haphazardly on the shoulder of the road, its engine running.
"Hold on," my father growled.
Instead of waiting for the police, he threw the SUV into drive and slammed his foot on the gas. The massive armored vehicle surged forward, roaring down the driveway.
A figure sprinted from the bushes toward the idling sedan. Even in the heavy rain and the dim light, I recognized the arrogant slope of his shoulders.
It was Ethan.
He had stayed to watch it burn. He wanted to see the terror on my face.
Ethan reached for the door handle of his car, but he never made it inside. My father didn't hit the brakes. He aimed the SUV directly at the rear quarter panel of Ethan’s sedan and rammed it.
The sickening crunch of metal on metal echoed over the sound of the crackling fire and the pouring rain. Ethan’s car was violently shunted into a deep drainage ditch, rendering it completely undrivable.
Ethan stumbled backward, falling into the mud.
My father threw the SUV into park, grabbed his Glock, and kicked his door open.
"Do not move, or I will put a hollow-point round through your kneecap!" my father roared, his voice cutting through the storm like thunder.
Ethan scrambled in the mud, his crisp suit ruined, his face pale with raw, unfiltered terror. He looked at the gun, then at the blazing house in the distance, and finally at me, sitting safely behind the bulletproof glass of the SUV.
The wail of fire engines and police sirens pierced the night, growing louder by the second.
"You're insane!" Ethan screamed at my father, holding his hands up. "You can't prove I did anything!"
"I don't have to," my father said softly, stepping closer, the muzzle of his weapon aimed squarely at Ethan's chest. "You just violated a restraining order, violated your bail, and committed arson. You're not going to a military prison, Ethan. You're going to a state penitentiary. And I am going to make sure you stay there until my grandchild is old enough to drive."
Red and blue lights flooded the street as four police cruisers and two fire trucks swarmed the property. Officers poured out, weapons drawn.
When they saw the military colonel standing over the mud-soaked, cowering suspect, they didn't hesitate.
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For the second time in less than a week, Ethan Vance was slammed against the hood of a police car and put in chains. But this time, there was no arrogant smirk.
He looked exactly like what he was: a broken, pathetic man who had played a dangerous game and lost everything.
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