Chapter 7 - The Breach
"Get on the ground!" Marco screamed, slamming the butt of his rifle into Vance’s jaw. The geneticist collapsed onto the stone floor of the crypt, spitting blood, but his laughter echoed through the chamber like an inescapable curse.
"You're too late, Adrien!" Vance choked out, clutching his shattered mouth. "She knows you're here! She played you! Lorenzo was the distraction! The bombs were the distraction! She knows your security protocols better than you do!"
I didn't waste a second. I pulled the titanium bio-vault from the mannequin's chest, shoved it into my tactical bag, and shot Vance through both kneecaps. His laughter instantly dissolved into a shriek of agony.
"Keep him alive, Marco," I roared, sprinting toward the exit. "Drag him into the van! We are moving! NOW!"
The drive back to the estate felt like racing through the circles of hell.
The freezing drizzle had turned into heavy sleet, slicking the highway as our Suburbans hit ninety miles per hour, sirens wailing, hazard lights cutting through the blinding fog. On the encrypted comms, all I could hear was the frantic sound of close-quarters gunfire and shouting.
*“Security post four is down!”* one of my guards yelled over the radio. *“They used an EMP charge on the east wing gate! The automated turrets are dead! They’re inside the residence!”*
"Elena!" I screamed into the mic, switching to the private channel linked to the underground bunker. "Elena, report! Are the children secure?!"
Static hissed in my ear. Then, a terrified, breathless voice came through.
*“Adrien... oh God, Adrien...”* It was Elena. She was whispering, her voice trembling so violently she could barely form words. *“They blew the heavy door... Sophie and I... we took the babies into the maintenance crawl space behind the wine cellar... but they have dogs, Adrien... they have dogs!”*
"Listen to me, Elena," I said, my knuckles white against the steering wheel as I pushed the accelerator to the floorboards. "There is a manual override lever behind the third wine rack on the north wall. Pull it. It drops the steel blast shutters over the sub-level corridors. It will buy you five minutes. Do you hear me? Five minutes!"
*“I hear you... I’m doing it now... Sophie, hold the baby, don't let Theo cry—!”*
A burst of automatic gunfire drowned out her voice, followed by the terrifying whine of metal slamming into concrete. The line went dead.
"Marco," I growled, my voice devoid of any human warmth. "Call every loyal gun we have in the city. Tell them to converge on the estate. Tell them that anyone found within two miles of my property who doesn't bear the Moretti crest gets put in the ground."
"Already done, Adrien," Marco said, his face carved from granite as he loaded a fresh drum magazine into his shotgun. "Two minutes out."
We hit the estate gates at seventy miles per hour.
The wrought-iron gate had been blown off its hinges, lying warped and twisted in the snow. Three black tactical SUVs were parked haphazardly across the circular driveway, their doors flung open, spent shell casings littering the pristine white grounds.
Two bodies in Moretti security uniforms lay motionless near the grand fountain.
I didn't wait for the vehicle to stop. I kicked my door open while the Suburban was still sliding across the ice, rolling onto the gravel, coming up with my Kimber drawn and firing.
A mercenary standing guard near the grand entrance took two rounds to the chest and collapsed backward through the double oak doors.
Marco and our four surviving operators moved behind me in a tight tactical diamond, sweeping the grand foyer.
The estate was dark, lit only by the flickering red emergency lights. The marble floors were smeared with muddy footprints, broken glass, and blood.
From the basement stairs, a heavy burst of automatic fire roared upward, chipping chunks of plaster from the archway.
"Cover the rear!" I barked, vaulting over the marble banister and dropping directly into the stairwell.
A mercenary was reloading his rifle at the base of the stairs. He looked up, his eyes widening in the dim red emergency light. I landed on him with the full force of my two-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame, driving his head into the concrete floor until his skull cracked.
I snatched his assault rifle, flipped the selector to semi-automatic, and moved into the subterranean corridor.
The blast shutter I had told Elena to trigger was halfway down—jammed by the body of a dead guard who had been caught beneath the steel teeth.
Through the two-foot gap beneath the shutter, I heard the vicious growling of a Belgian Malinois.
And then, I heard a child scream.
It wasn't Nora, Theo, or Miles.
May you like
It was Sophie.
***
