Free Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) by L. Douglas Hogan

basement stairs. The fire erupted with a ferocity that could only be explained as a small explosion. Other Molotov cocktails came flying into the house and completely engulfed the downstairs area.
    Grabbing his youngest daughter’s hand, he pulled her in his direction toward the staircase that led upstairs.
    Tori was cut off from the rest of the family, on the kitchen side of the fire.
    Richard couldn’t see her anymore and was yelling for her.
    “Tori!”
    “Richard, I’m here.”
    “I have Charity. Go find Amelia.”
    Tori scrambled through the dining room area and searched intently for her oldest daughter, Amelia.
    “Amelia!” Tori screamed over and over again. All she could hear was the crackling sounds of burning furniture and décor. The smoke had filled the kitchen and dining room area to the point she could barely breathe. She was deeply inhaling smoke and coughing as she went.
    “Richard! I can’t find …”
    Tori’s lungs were filling with smoke as she attempted to complete a sentence. She was trying to scream for Richard, but every time she took in a deep breath to yell, she inhaled the deadly smoke, and she was starting to asphyxiate.
    Self-preservation usually worked for people with no children, but parents oftentimes put the well-being of their children at the forefront of every circumstance. In this case, Tori continued to look for Amelia. She could no longer speak and the smoke was lifting up the staircase, where her daughter Charity and her husband, Richard, had fled.
    Tori fell to the floor as she felt her knees give way. The oxygen in her blood was low, and her heart had nothing left to circulate to her muscles. Her tunnel vision was narrowing as she began hearing the sounds of gunshots coming from outside.
    There was a loud crash that came from the window over her kitchen stove.
    Tori was lifted off the floor, and that was the last thing she remembered before completely losing consciousness.

    December 2
    Tony, Rob, and Albert were at Tori’s bedside when she regained consciousness. They had seen the flames from their residence just a few blocks up the road.
    They were members of a small prepper group located in the downtown Belleville area.
    Tony was the founder of the group and generally frowned upon excursions outside of their bunker-style storefront.
    For years, Tony had been stockpiling food and supplies. He was the type of man the community would have considered paranoid before the Flip. After the Flip, he was the man that everybody else wished they would’ve listened to.
    Tony owned the storefront and had spent the last several years conjoining the basements into one large bunker. The buildings themselves were just a ruse. His survivability came from the underside of those real estate purchases.
    Rob and Albert were associates of Tori’s husband, Richard, and knew her from family days.
    “Amelia!” Tori screamed as she opened her eyes and tried to sit up.
    “Lie back down,” Albert said to her. “You’re not well enough to leave yet.”
    “I need to find Amelia. Richard, dear Lord, where’s Richard?” Tori yelled.
    “Tori,” Rob said to get her attention, “Richard and your children …”
    Rob had barely uttered the words before Tori started to break down.
    “Where’s my babies?” she cried.
    “Tori, listen to me,” Rob said. “They didn’t make it out of the fire.”
    Tori pushed Rob away and stood up off the couch they had her resting on.
    “I can’t stay here,” she cried as she began to cough.
    “Tori, you’re not well enough to leave,” Tony told her. “Stay here and rest a while. You’ve been through so much already.”
    Tori was coughing so hard that she was losing consciousness again.
    She sat back down on the couch, and Albert handed her a glass of water.
    “Here, drink this sparingly,” he said. “There’s not a wealth of drinkable water anymore.”
    Tony was standing in the doorway of the food storage pantry.
    “Albert, Rob, can I talk to you