The Secluded Estate

Marlo

I sat pressed against the seat, staring out the window as the city lights of Melbourne thinned into long, pitch black stretches of coastal highway. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the terrifying crack of rifle fire smashing into stone right behind my heels.

Jarrah sat beside me in the dark. He hadn't said a single word since we left the city limits. His huge frame filled the backseat, radiating a heavy, suffocating heat that made the small space feel even tighter. His eyes were glued to the side mirror, watching every set of headlights that pulled onto the highway behind us.

An hour later we reached.

The SUV slowed as we turned off the main road onto a private drive winding down toward Port Phillip Bay. High stone walls loomed out of the fog on both sides, topped with thick black iron fencing. Up ahead, massive double gates blocked the road.

As our headlights hit the entrance, a beam of harsh white light swept across the hood of the car. A tall man in a dark tactical jacket stepped out of a guard hut, a short barreled rifle slung across his chest. He checked our plates, looked inside the window, and gave Jarrah a short nod before waving us through.

The gates opened with a heavy sound, and we rolled inside.

"Where are we?" I asked, my voice coming out thin and hoarse in the car.

"My home," Jarrah said softly. His voice was flat, devoid of any comfort. "The only place left on this coast where you can sleep without a bullet coming through your window."

The driveway opened up to a towering modern estate perched right on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the bay. It was built from dark slate and concrete, with huge glass panels staring out into the empty blackness of the ocean below.

The SUV stopped in the wide stone courtyard. Before the engine even cut out, Jarrah opened his door, reached back into the seat, and took my wrist. His grip was firm, but he didn't pull hard. He just waited for me to step out. Add the wind off the bay hit me like a slap. I could smell the salt water and the damp seaweed clinging to the rocks hundreds of feet below us.

Jarrah walked me up the steps toward the front doors. I glanced around, my eye automatically taking in the details of the property.

This wasn't just a rich athlete's luxury beach house.

High up on the eaves, subtle dome cameras mounted on bases tracked our every step. Red infrared sensors pulsed faintly in the dark shrubbery lining the walkway. Near the heavy steel framed front door, a keypad glowed with a biometric fingerprint scanner and a keycard reader.

"Jarrah," I whispered, pulling back slightly against his grip. "This looks like a compound."

"It's a fortress, Marlo," he replied, pressing his thumb against the glass scanner.

The lock disengaged with a loud, mechanical thunk, and he pushed the door open, guiding me inside.

The interior of the house was stunning, but completely hollow, as we entered Jarrah locked the main door behind us, tapping a quick six digit code into a screen.

Immediately, a soft chime echoed through the foyer, followed by a quiet, mechanical hum. I turned around and watched in sheer disbelief as heavy, armored steel security shutters slowly descended from hidden slots in the ceiling, completely covering the glass front doors and sealing us off from the outside world.

My breath caught in my chest. A wave of claustrophobia slammed into my ribs.

"What are you doing?" I choked out, backing away from the metal shutters. "Jarrah, why are you locking us in?"

"I'm locking them out," he said, taking off his wet jacket and throwing it over the couch. Beneath it, his dark shirt clung to his broad shoulders, framing the subtle outline of the scar tissue wrapping around his ribs.

I pulled my phone out of my coat pocket, my fingers flying across the screen to call my roommate or check my messages.

No Service.

Not a single bar. Not even an option for emergency calls.

"My phone isn't working," I said, my voice rising as panic began to bubble up in my throat. I looked up at him. "Why doesn't my phone have service?"

"Signal jammers," Jarrah said calmly, walking into the kitchen and pouring a glass of cold tap water. He walked back toward me and extended the glass. "Nobody can track a cellular signal into this house, and nobody inside can send a signal out. If Siobhan or Cal try to ping your location tonight, it'll show you're still sitting in the middle of the university library."

I stared at the glass in his hand, then at his face. His amber eyes were dark, shadowed with exhaustion and an edge of cold paranoia I had never seen in him before.

"I'm trapped here," I whispered, the reality crashing down on me. "You brought me here so I couldn't leave."

"I brought you here so you wouldn't die," he corrected, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low gravel. He set the glass down on the marble counter with a sharp clink. "You spent three hours in that library digging up records on Siobhan's shell companies. You poked a hornet's nest, Marlo. Those men on the library steps weren't trying to scare you. They came to put a bullet through your forehead before you could talk to the police."

"And what about you?" I demanded, stepping right up into his space, my chest heaving. "You're keeping me in a cage! You've got armed guards on the gate, signal jammers, steel doors You aren't just hiding from them, Jarrah. You're waiting for them."

Jarrah didn't deny it. He leaned down slightly, his dark gaze locking onto mine, his hot breath brushing against my forehead.

"I've been waiting ten years for this fight, little bird," he murmured, his hand coming up to gently cup the nape of my neck, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin right behind my ear. "And it's coming to this front door whether you like it or not."

Before I could reply, a quiet, rhythmic beep pulsed from a control panel hidden behind a floating wooden bookshelf in the hallway.

Jarrah’s entire body went rock hard in a split second. The soft, possessive warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, killer instinct of a cornered beast.

He let go of my neck and strode down the hall toward the panel. I followed him, my heart hammering like a war drum against my ribs.

The control panel was a live perimeter map of the estate. Green lines outlined the stone walls, the cliffside, and the private beach below.

Right at the base of the cliffs on the dark, rocky shore where no boat should have been able to dock in this weather a single red dot was flashing violently.

A quiet, mechanical voice spoke from the panel's speaker:

Warning: Motion detected on South Cliff Trail. Outer perimeter breach.

Jarrah reached under the shelf and pulled out a heavy black pistol, slapping a loaded magazine into the grip with a chilling, practiced ease.

He turned to me, his face dead pale in the red glow of the alarm light.

"They didn't wait until midnight," he whispered.