THE WINTER HEIR

The front door blew inward with a splintering crash of oak and iron as a heavy tactical boot kicked it off its hinges.

Before the first masked operative could step across the threshold with his submachine gun raised, a deafening roar erupted from the dark interior of the guest alcove.

Bang! Bang!

The muzzle flash of the Sig Sauer lit up the room like a strobe light. The first man in the doorway—a hulking figure in a black tactical vest—jerked violently backward as a round caught him square in the shoulder plate, spinning him off the porch and down into the snowbank below.

"Contact! Front window!" the second man bellowed, dropping to one knee on the threshold and sweeping his weapon toward the kitchen.

"Brie, stay down!" I roared, scrambling across the floor toward the heavy cast-iron skillet sitting on the wood stove.

The second operative swung his rifle barrel into the cabin, but before he could squeeze the trigger, a heavy glass Mason jar filled with home-canned peaches—which I had snatched off the pantry shelf—caught him directly across the side of his helmet with the force of a falling anvil. The glass shattered into a thousand amber shards, and the man crumpled sideways, tumbling off the porch.

"Clear!" Callahan yelled from the floor, his voice straining as he fired two more rapid shots through the shattered frame of the front door, forcing the remaining two men outside to scramble for cover behind the snowbanks.

"They're calling for backup!" Callahan gasped, dropping the empty magazine from the Sig and slamming a fresh one home with teeth-gritting precision. "Clara, get the girl! We have less than two minutes before their second truck cuts off the logging road!"

I didn't hesitate. I dove under the table, grabbed Brie by her small, shivering shoulders, and hauled her out. She wasn't crying; she was hyperventilating, her eyes wide with shock.

"Hold onto my neck, baby," I whispered fiercely, hoisting her onto my back and wrapping her arms tight around my shoulders. "Hold on and don't let go, no matter what happens."

"Mommy, I'm scared," she whimpered into my ear.

"I know, sweetie. But we're getting out of here."

I grabbed our go-bag from the hall closet—cash, spare clothes, our birth certificates, and a box of shotgun shells—and turned back to the living room.

Callahan was already on his feet, leaning heavily against the doorframe, blood soaking through his makeshift bandages and dripping onto the floorboards. He looked like death warmed over, but his eyes were locked on the tree line where the amber lights of the second Ford truck were beginning to sweep across the clearing.

"The root cellar," Callahan said, nodding toward a heavy wooden hatch built into the floor near the back pantry. "Does it lead out to the creek bed?"

"Yes," I said.