Chapter 72 - The Poisoned Pact
"Get down!" Vincent shouted, lunging forward in the dark.
He tackled me to the floor just as the double wooden doors of the suite splintered into hundreds of razor-sharp fragments. A flashbang grenade detonate in the entrance, the concussive boom echoing violently against the stone walls and searing the darkness with blinding magnesium white.
My ears rang with a deafening, high-pitched screech.
Vincent didn't wait for the smoke to clear. Firing blindly into the doorway with his sidearm, he emptied four rounds into the hallway, forcing the attackers back. He grabbed my jacket, hauling me to my feet, and shoved me toward the corner where Maya was hidden.
"Take her into the service corridor behind the wardrobe!" he roared over the ringing in my ears. "The tunnel leads down to the western cliffs! Take the emergency transponder and run!"
"I'm not leaving you!" I yelled back, tears of pain and adrenaline streaming down my face.
"Clara, look at me!" He grabbed my face with both hands, his thumbs pressing hard into my jawline, forcing my eyes to meet his through the billowing smoke. His face was streaked with soot, his jaw set with an agonizing ferocity. "If they take Maya, the entire bloodline dies. Everything I did—letting you run five years ago, leaving breadcrumbs to watch over you—was to keep you two alive. Don't make it meaningless now!"
The truth hit me harder than the concussion of the blast.
"You... you let me run?" I stammered, the memory of that foggy night five years ago flashing through my mind. The unguarded rear exit at the Milan train station. The unlocked safe with cash and falsified passports. "You knew?"
"I was never going to cage you," Vincent whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion he had buried under a decade of iron and violence. "Now run!"
Two shadowy figures in tactical armor burst through the pulverized doorway, automatic weapons raised.
Vincent spun, throwing his weight into the nearest operative. He slammed the man against the stone fireplace, wrenching the assault rifle from his hands with brutal, practiced efficiency. The second shooter brought his barrel up toward Vincent's chest.
I didn't think. I grabbed the heavy brass lamp from the bedside table and swung it with all the strength in my body, smashing it against the side of the gunman's helmet. The blow threw off his aim; a burst of suppressed rounds ripped into the ceiling plaster instead of Vincent's heart.
Vincent seized the opening, driving his combat knife upward beneath the operative's tactical vest. The man collapsed with a strangled gasp.
"Good hit," Vincent muttered, breathing heavily as he kicked the second fallen body away.
I rushed to the bed, ripping the covers back. Maya was curled into a tight ball, trembling violently, but unharmed. I scooped her into my arms, pressing her face into my neck.
"Mommy's got you, baby," I whispered frantically. "Mommy's got you."
Vincent tore the heavy oak wardrobe away from the wall, revealing an iron latch set into the raw mountain stone. He pulled it open, exposing a narrow, downward-sloping tunnel carved directly through the rock.
"Follow the red emergency markers," Vincent commanded, thrusting a spare magazine and a compact Glock into my coat pocket. "Salvatore should be at the base of the cliffs with the secondary transport. If I am not there in fifteen minutes, you take the boat and head for Corsica."
"Vincent—"
Before I could finish, a cold, mocking voice drifted through the shattered doorway from the corridor outside.
"What a touching family reunion," the woman said.
Stepping over the bodies of the fallen operatives was a figure cloaked in black Kevlar, her face framed by the exact same auburn hair as mine, cut sharp against her jawline. But her eyes were not warm like mine, nor guarded like Elena's.
They were dead, gray, and completely devoid of human warmth.
Valerie.
May you like
In her right hand, she held a remote detonator. In her left, she held the silver signet ring of the Moretti patriarch—the ring that belonged to Vincent's father.
***
