Chapter 8 - The Siege in the Storm
Dominic pulled the trigger.
The blast tore through the mahogany banister an inch from my shoulder, wooden splinters slicing across my cheek as I dove behind a solid marble column. Plaster rained down on me as the twelve-gauge slugs chewed through the neoclassical stonework.
*Boom! Boom!*
The concussive force rattled my teeth. I returned fire, blind-firing three rounds around the column’s edge, forcing Dominic to duck behind the balustrade.
Above me, through the open ceiling of the rotunda, I heard a sharp crack of glass breaking on the second floor, followed by the muffled staccato of a pistol firing in rapid succession.
*Clara was inside.*
Upstairs, in Matteo’s room, two enforcers had breached the heavy interior door with hydraulic spreaders.
The first enforcer stepped inside, raising a silenced submachine gun toward the bed where Matteo huddled against the headboard.
Before the shooter could acquire his target, the exterior French doors exploded inward.
Clara Hayes burst through the shattered glass, soaked in rain, moving like an apex predator. She drove the barrel of her Glock directly beneath the first man’s helmet, firing twice. The enforcer collapsed instantly.
The second man pivoted, swinging his rifle toward her, but Matteo—screaming with all the air left in his small, terrified lungs—grabbed the heavy brass bedside lamp from the nightstand and hurled it with both arms.
The lamp struck the gunman in the side of the head, knocking his aim off by an inch.
The burst of 9mm rounds chewed into the headboard just above Matteo’s head, but that single second was all Clara needed. She closed the distance, drove a combat knife through the gunman’s shoulder seam, wrenched the rifle from his grip, and brought the heavy stock down across his skull with bone-shattering force.
The room fell dead silent, save for the wind howling through the broken terrace doors.
Matteo sat trembling in the bed, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, tears streaming down his face.
Clara dropped the rifle, dropped to her knees beside the bed, and pulled the boy into a fierce, protective embrace.
“You’re okay,” she whispered into his hair, her voice breaking for the first time. “You did it, Matteo. You threw the lamp. You saved us.”
Matteo clutched her wet shirt with desperate strength, burying his face in her neck.
“Dad...” the boy sobbed, his voice clearer now, stronger. “Where’s my dad?”
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Downstairs, another deafening shotgun blast shook the estate’s foundations.
***
