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He dodged one of his attackers, who was attempting to use his gun as a melee weapon. He used the momentum to deliver a devastating blow to another assailant while punching the one he'd dodged in the face.

Meanwhile, Joey maintained his vantage point on the balcony, picking off enemies as they attempted to come up the stairs toward him and lying down suppressing fire on the group forming in the foyer. His precision shots were crucial, providing us with the cover we needed.

I ducked behind the table and fired a few shots into the grouped invaders that seemed to never-endingly come out of the bottleneck of the door to my office.

"Craig! Where are our men?!" I yelled as he appeared in the door to the camera room.

"They're dealing with a massive assault at the gate. It's a full-blown fire fight out there. They're not coming." He yelled as he started to make his way back into the room.

"Fuck!" I felt a rock settle into the pit of my stomach at the news, but I couldn't dwell on it. Just then, one of the large dining room windows exploded inward, sending shards of glass across the room. Craig started toward me and the two new combatants.

"Go help Leighton, I've got this!"

Craig hesitated for a second before pivoting toward the foyer. He'd barely disappeared into the fray when a dismembered arm flew toward me.

"Look what I found!" Leighton cackled.

The arm landed on the floor with a thud, skidding across the hardwood between me and the two new intruders. I barely had time to note the red spider lily tattoo before I was under fire. Grabbing the corner of the dining table, I dragged it with me for cover as I stepped backward toward the camera room, firing back. My first shot went wide, shattering the other window, but my next two hit their marks. Both men dropped one after the other as I nailed them between the eyes.

As I turned back to the foyer, seeing that most of the herd had been thinned, I moved to join the fight. My shoulder burned, and my shirt was sticking to me from where the stitches had already torn open, causing me to bleed again. I gritted my teeth as I leaned around cover and shot one of the assailants that leaned out from behind the office wall.

A yell from the gallery hall was all the warning we had as another wave of men filled the foyer. An easy guess of their numbers put us right back at square one.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Leighton's exasperated yell cut through the chaos as he tossed down his machete and pulled out a shotgun from seemingly nowhere.

"Where the fuck did you get a shotgun, L?" Joey yelled down from above us in disbelief.

"Oh, you know. Around." Leighton grinned mischievously as if his apparition of the large weapon was just another day at the office and always readily available.

The Jackals' soldiers charged at us as the renewed firefight erupted around us. Bullets whizzed through the air, and the echoes of gunfire reverberated throughout the manor. Instinct had kicked in some time ago as we moved with tactical precision, taking cover and returning fire. But it was quickly becoming tiring. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Craig stumble as he cursed and glanced at his leg. Even with the minimal light coming from outside, I could see he'd been hit in the thigh.

Joey cursed loudly from above us, and his cover fire ceased. "I keep telling you guys to store the gunsproperly!" He yelled, frustration evident in his voice.

He reached into his tuxedo jacket and pulled out two small guns. He fired a couple more shots, taking down two more assailants.

"Really, Joey, .22s? Aren't those a little underwhelming?" Leighton's laughter was punctuated by the boom from his shotgun as he fired into a grouping of Jackals at the base of the stairs.

Joey turned, aimed one of the guns toward Leighton, and dropped a man who had been closing in on Leighton's flank. "It's not the size of the gun that matters; it's the skill of the marksman!"

"Will you two focus on us getting out of this alive, please?! You can have a dick-measuring contest later!" I yelled, moving to a better vantage point and taking down another Jackal.

"I think I have just the thing for this situation!" Leighton yelled, backing up toward the office before ducking inside. The sound of his shotgun blasts inside the room, announcing he'd found another attacker still inside it.

Suddenly, pain ripped through my shoulder, and I staggered backward, my focus threatening to shatter. Pain seared through my leg immediately after, and I found myself on one knee despite my resolve to keep standing.

"Get down!" Leighton yelled, but my vision was temporarily blurred; I couldn't see what he was doing from the doorway.

I felt hands on my arm, pulling me backward before another sharp pain bloomed in my abdomen. Fuck.

"You better get your ass down here, Joey. My baby is about to send these fucking Jackals straight to hell," Leighton called out amidst the continuing gunfire.

"Come on, Rich. Help me get your big ass back here." I heard Craig's voice behind me as he pulled, but it sounded strangely distant as I tried to focus on anything besides the agony in my gut.

He threw one of my arms over his shoulder while shooting wildly into the group of Jackals advancing toward us. I did my best with my good leg to help him move me from the foyer.

A deafening explosion rocked the foyer. I felt the force of the shockwave throw us the final few feet into the dining room and slammed my wounded shoulder into the overturned dining room table. I couldn't stop the yell that tore out of my throat as the spasm of anguish ripped through my upper body.

I blinked until my vision cleared, seeing the smoke and debris filling the air as Leighton exited the office. He moved gleefully from one pile of bodies and rubble to another, shooting anything perceived as a movement.