Chapter 7 - Blood in the Great Hall
Bone cracked.
Luca stumbled backward with a muffled shriek of agony, blood spurting from his shattered nose. The pistol slipped from his fingers, clattering across the marble floor.
Clara didn't hesitate. She scooped the heavy gun off the ground. She didn't know how to shoot, but she remembered how Damian held it. She raised it with both hands, aiming directly at Luca’s chest.
"Move and I pull this," she warned, her voice shaking with adrenaline.
Luca spat a mouthful of red onto the Persian rug. He laughed, a wet, ugly sound. "You don't have the stomach for it, maid. You're soft. You're—"
He lunged.
Clara pulled the trigger.
The silenced weapon let out a muted *pfft-crack*. Luca collapsed violently onto his stomach, a bullet hole smoking through his left shoulder. He groaned in the spreading pool of his own blood.
Clara immediately hit the fortress alarm button on the wall. Klaxons began to wail throughout the estate.
Outside, gunfire erupted.
The traitorous guards Luca had brought were engaging the loyal Costello soldiers stationed on the lower perimeters.
Clara sprinted to the twins, gathering them both into her arms. She ran not toward the exits, but toward Damian’s private panic room hidden behind the master suite—the location Damian had shown her only three nights prior.
"Costello code 0-9-1-2," she whispered into the keypad, her fingers trembling.
The heavy steel door slid open with a pneumatic hiss. She dashed inside, placing the screaming boys into a cushioned cot. She turned to close the door when a shadow fell across the threshold.
Moretti’s lead assassin, armed with an MP5 submachine gun, stood in the doorway, blood dripping from his tactical vest.
"Found the prizes," the assassin grinned.
Clara raised her empty pistol. The slide locked back. *Empty.*
The man chuckled, raising his weapon. "Good night, little girl."
A deafening roar split the hallway.
The assassin’s chest exploded outward in a spray of gore. He crumpled like an empty sack.
Standing behind him, bathed in the flashing red emergency lights, was Damian Costello.
His suit was torn, drenched in rain and the blood of other men. He held an assault rifle in one hand, smoking, his face pale and contorted into a mask of pure demonic rage. He had driven eighty miles an hour through a blizzard to get back.
He saw the dead hitman. He saw Luca groaning in the hall. And then he saw Clara, standing between the bullets and his sons.
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Damian lowered the rifle. For the first time in his life, his hands shook.
***
