As Scrooge’s lead enforcer burst into the room, he found not a terrified child, but a floor covered in micro-machines and a tripwire rigged to a heavy bowling ball. It was Home Alone played for keeps, and as the mercenary tumbled backward, Santa was there to meet him.
They weren't prepared for a man who knew exactly who had been naughty.
"Bah humbug," he wheezed, pulling a half-empty bottle of gin from his sack. He took a swig, the burn fueling the ancient, Viking fire still flickering in his veins.
The final confrontation happened in the snow-dusted courtyard. Scrooge stood over the bloodied Santa, a gun leveled at his head. "You're a myth," the villain sneered. "A story told to keep kids in line. You don't belong in a world of Glocks and greed."
The first mercenary died near the chimney. He didn’t hear the heavy boots; he only felt the crushing weight of a sack filled with heavy toys smashing into his jaw. Santa didn't use a silencer; he used a sharpened candy cane and a heavy-duty sledgehammer he’d nicknamed "Skullcrusher" back when he was raiding coastal villages a thousand years ago.
The wind howled across the sprawling Lightstone estate, but inside, the air was thick with a different kind of chill: the cold, calculated greed of a family that hated each other almost as much as the mercenaries currently holding them hostage.
