Chapter 7 - The Wolf at the Door
The spell shattered instantly.
Michael shifted from an impassioned lover to a lethal warlord in the span of a single heartbeat. He pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, drew two tactical handguns, and handed one to me.
“Do you know how to shoot?” he demanded, his voice flat, razor-sharp.
“My dad was a cop,” I said, checking the magazine with trembling hands. “Point and pull.”
“Keep the safety off. Stay behind me.”
Gunfire erupted in the outer foyer—the muffled, terrifying rattle of automatic weapons tearing through wood and plaster. Alarms began to blare, casting strobing crimson lights across the walls of the penthouse.
“Zach,” I gasped, terror gripping my throat. “Michael, Zach is in the west wing!”
“Lev is with him,” Michael said, moving swiftly toward the double doors of the study. “The nursery is reinforced steel. It can withstand plastic explosives. But they’re cutting off our route to the safe room.”
Michael kicked open the study door and fired three controlled shots into the smoky corridor. A scream echoed from the foyer as an intruder crumpled to the hardwood floor.
I followed closely behind him, the smell of cordite and burning drywall stinging my nose. Through the smoke, I saw four men in dark tactical gear advancing down the long hallway, their submachine guns raised.
“Down!” Michael roared, spinning and shoving me behind an overturned marble bench just as a barrage of lead tore through the wall where my head had been seconds ago.
Concrete dust rained down like snow. Michael leaned out, returning fire with lethal precision, taking down two men in quick succession. But the remaining shooters pinned us down with continuous suppressing fire.
“They aren't Rossi’s men!” Michael shouted over the noise, reloading his magazine with one smooth motion. “The tactical gear... this is a mercenary hit squad!”
Suddenly, the fire ceased.
A familiar voice echoed from the elevator vestibule.
“Michael! Throw down your weapons, or I blow the boy’s nursery open with C4!”
My blood turned to ice water.
Regina.
Stepping into the ruined foyer was my stepmother, wearing a Kevlar vest over her clothes, flanked by a tall man in a military combat uniform with a detonator in his hand.
“Regina?” I whispered, disbelief and horror choking me. “How... how did you get up here?”
Regina laughed—a shrill, manic sound that made my skin crawl. “You really thought your daddy died in an accident, didn't you, Aurora? Thomas found out what your boss here was shipping through the Brooklyn docks. He was going to sell the intelligence to the feds! But I made a better deal with the syndicate.”
The puzzle pieces clicked together with horrifying clarity.
My father hadn't been killed by the mob.
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Regina had sold him out. She had cut the brake lines on his cruiser, collected his life insurance, and when that ran dry, she used Tony Gambino as a front to track down the last thing Thomas Vance had left behind: the evidence locker key he had hidden inside my childhood jewelry box.
“Give me the key, Aurora!” Regina screamed, waving a pistol wildly. “Give me the locker key, or I turn Michael’s kid into mist!”
