Chapter 5 - The Parapet Shadow
The crimson dots danced across the wet ivory wool of Leo's blazer like drops of fresh blood.
Dominic didn't think; he moved on the instinct that had kept him alive through three gang wars. With a savage, guttural roar, his left arm swept down, scooping Leo off the asphalt and crushing the six-year-old against his ribs. Simultaneously, Dominic pivoted his entire body, using his own broad, armored shoulders to shield the boy as he threw his full weight forward, tackling Elena to the wet pavement beneath the high metal running board of the Suburban.
Crack-crack-crack-crack.
A synchronized volley of suppressed rifle rounds stitched a lethal line across the asphalt, chipping the stone inches from Dominic’s heels and shattering the rear passenger window of the SUV in a shower of frosted glass.
Inside the vehicle, the other three boys shrieked in terror, ducking beneath the leather seats as glass rained over their blazers.
"Stay under the frame!" Dominic roared into Elena’s ear, his body completely blanketing both her and Leo against the wet undercarriage of the truck.
He didn't look at his uncle.
Vincent Moretti, hobbled by his cane, was scrambling desperately toward the passenger door of a second town car idling fifty yards down the alley. The old man wasn't commanding the snipers; he was fleeing from them.
"They're not my uncle's men!" Dominic barked, pulling his Sig Sauer from beneath his arm, his mind calculating trajectories through the dark. "Vincent brought enforcers, not marksmen with thermal optics. That’s a military strike team."
"The Vanes," Elena gasped, her hands clamped over Leo’s ears to drown out the gunfire. "You threw the diamond in Salvatore’s face! You humiliated their family in front of every don in New England!"
"Salvatore doesn't have shooters who can hit a target in a downpour from seventy yards out," Dominic said grimly.
He peered around the rear tire of the Suburban.
Up on the brick parapet of the old textile warehouse, silhouetted against the stormy city glow, were three figures in dark tactical gear. They weren't using standard mafia hardware; their weapons were equipped with top-tier suppressors and proprietary infrared laser modules used almost exclusively by private military contractors.
The sniper on the left adjusted his position, his green night-vision goggles glowing like spectral eyes through the mist.
Dominic reached into his tactical pocket, pulling out a heavy, steel-cased flash grenade he had stripped from the enforcer in the kitchen.
"Elena. When this goes off, you drag Leo into the front driver's seat. The key is in the ignition. You lock the doors, hit the master override, and you drive through the brick wall if you have to."
"Dominic, no!" she cried, grabbing his wrist, her fingers slippery with rain and his blood. "You can't take three snipers with a handgun!"
Dominic looked down into her hazel eyes. For a fraction of a second, the lethal warlord vanished, replaced by the man who had kissed her on the shores of Lake Placid seven summers ago.
He leaned down, pressing his lips firmly against her forehead, his voice dropping into a rough, gravelly whisper that cut through the storm.
"I spent six years thinking I had nothing to live for, Elena. I'm not letting them take my sons."
He pulled the pin with his teeth.
Dominic didn't throw the grenade toward the roof. He hurled it straight up toward the low-hanging steel fire escape platform directly beneath the snipers' perch.
BANG-FLASH.
A blinding, multi-spectrum burst of magnesium and concussive sound detonated twenty feet above the alley.
The three snipers, wearing high-gain night-vision optics, screamed in agony as the intense light amplified through their lenses, searing their retinas. The sniper on the right lost his balance, tumbling over the rusted iron railing, plummeting thirty feet down through the air, crashing onto the metal roof of a commercial dumpster with a sickening, final thud.
Dominic broke cover before the smoke could clear.
He didn't run along the ground. He vaulted onto the hood of the Suburban, used the roof rack as a launchpad, and leaped onto the lower rung of the counterweighted fire-escape ladder, his six-foot-two frame hauling itself upward with terrifying, predatory grace.
The surviving sniper on the parapet was blinking through tears, ripping his ruined goggles from his helmet, trying to swing his short-barreled carbine toward the fire escape.
Dominic crested the railing like an avenging demon.
He didn't fire his weapon; he closed the distance in two massive strides, his left hand catching the barrel of the rifle, forcing it skyward as a three-round burst tore into the clouds. Dominic drove his right elbow into the operative's jaw with the concussive force of an anvil.
The man’s head snapped back, his helmet flying off into the darkness.
Dominic grabbed the contractor by the collar of his tactical vest, hoisting him off his feet, slamming his spine hard against the brick chimney.
"Who hired you?!" Dominic snarled, pressing the muzzle of his Sig Sauer under the man’s chin.
The contractor spat blood onto Dominic’s white shirt, a jagged, broken grin spreading across his face.
"You're... too late, Moretti," the operative wheezed, his fingers clawing at Dominic’s iron grip. "The hit... wasn't ordered from Boston."
"Who?!" Dominic roared, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Check the boy's coat," the man rattled, blood bubbling from his lips. "The tracker... was in the piping... since they left the island."
Dominic froze.
The blazers. The matching ivory blazers with the navy piping and gold crests.
Dominic turned his head, looking down into the alley below.
Elena was scrambling into the driver's seat of the Suburban, hauling Leo inside, but fifty yards behind the vehicle, emerging from the darkness of Commercial Street, were three identical black armored vans.
Dozens of red laser sights cut through the rain, locking onto the doors of the truck where his four sons were trapped.
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And stepping out of the lead van, carrying a tactical tablet displaying a live GPS tracking dot centered on the children's clothes, was a woman dressed in a sleek, tailored trench coat, her dark hair pulled into a tight military bun.
It was Elena’s younger sister, Sophia—the woman who had supposedly wept beside Dominic at Elena’s empty grave six years ago.
