Chapter 8 - The Siege of Spedaro Manor
The heavy oak doors of the master bedroom flew open with a violent bang.
Tomaso stood in the threshold, an automatic tactical rifle slung across his chest and a smear of soot across his forehead.
"The front gates are breached!" Tomaso shouted over the blaring security sirens.
"They used a semi-truck loaded with commercial explosives to vaporize the iron entrance!"
"How many?" Cedric demanded, his transition from the passionate lover back to the cold general taking less than a heartbeat.
He shifted me off his lap with protective care, his hands already reaching for the concealed weapon holster beneath the armrest of his chair.
"At least thirty heavily armed mercenaries," Tomaso reported rapidly.
"They're moving across the courtyard in tactical fireteams."
"They have night vision, suppressors, and Julian Vance is directing them from an armored command van on the perimeter street."
Cedric racked the slide of his customized pistol with a sharp, metallic clatter.
"Lock down the interior security bulkheads."
"Route all external cameras to my secondary tablet."
"And activate the courtyard suppression grid."
"The grid is offline, boss!" Tomaso yelled as distant gunfire echoed from the lower levels.
"They had an insider cut the secondary generator line behind the greenhouse!"
Cedric’s eyes narrowed into slits of lethal diamond.
"An insider."
"Mariana found two guards dead by the breaker box with clean knife wounds to the base of the skull," Tomaso said grimly.
"Someone gave Vance the operational schematics of the estate."
I grabbed Cedric’s forearm, the adrenaline surging through my blood like liquid fire.
"The ledger, Cedric. They're coming for the ledger in the study safe."
"No," Cedric replied, looking up at me with terrifying clarity.
"They have the cipher from your apartment."
"They don't need to crack the safe if they can extract you alive and force me to hand over the physical book."
"You are the objective, Anna."
He turned his wheelchair toward the private elevator hidden behind the dressing room partition.
"Tomaso, take her to the secondary bunker beneath the garage."
"No!" I shouted, refusing to move.
"I told you an hour ago, I am not leaving your side!"
"Anna, this is not a negotiation!" Cedric roared, his voice cutting through the wail of the sirens.
"If they take you, I lose my only leverage, and you lose your life!"
"If I go to the bunker, you stay up here and die!" I screamed back, stepping directly in front of his chair.
"Look at me, Cedric!"
"You said you protect what belongs to you!"
"Well, you belong to me now, too!"
"You don't get to die alone in this hallway just to play the martyr!"
Cedric stared at me, stunned by the sheer ferocity of my defiance.
A sudden burst of automatic gunfire ripped through the stained-glass window at the end of the corridor, showering the Persian rugs with colorful shards.
Three of our perimeter guards fell back down the hallway, firing desperately at dark, tactical figures advancing up the grand staircase.
"They're on the second floor!" Tomaso yelled, raising his rifle and firing three short, controlled bursts into the smoke.
"Cedric, we have thirty seconds before this wing is completely cut off!"
Cedric made his decision in a fraction of a second.
"To the study," he commanded.
"We make our stand behind the reinforced mahogany doors."
We moved through the smoke-filled corridor in a tight formation.
Tomaso led the way, clearing corners with ruthless efficiency while I kept my hand firmly on Cedric’s shoulder as he navigated the debris-strewn marble floor.
Bullets gouged chunks of plaster from the walls, sending white dust swirling through the air like snow.
We slammed through the double oak doors of the study, and Tomaso immediately engaged the heavy steel deadbolts.
The room smelled of old paper, leather, and the impending scent of cordite.
Cedric wheeled himself behind the massive mahogany desk, opening the bottom drawer to reveal an arsenal of high-capacity magazines and a compact submachine gun.
"Tomaso, cover the balcony access," Cedric ordered, racking the submachine gun with one hand.
"Anna, get behind the desk, stay flat on the floor, and do not raise your head for anything."
I dropped behind the reinforced desk, my heart thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Suddenly, a voice boomed through the estate’s external intercom system—a voice that had haunted my childhood nightmares.
Smooth, cultured, and devoid of all human empathy.
"Cedric Spedaro!" the voice echoed through the shattered windows.
"This is Julian Vance."
"Your perimeter guards are dead, your grid is dead, and your empire is currently burning to the waterline."
I clamped my hands over my ears, the sound of the man who had murdered my mother making the room spin.
"You have five minutes to roll out onto the front balcony with the Vincenzi ledger and the girl," Vance’s voice continued calmly.
"Do this, and I will grant you a clean death with a bullet through the head."
"Refuse, and I will pump thermite gas through the ventilation shafts and burn you alive in that study, just like I burned her family fifteen years ago."
Cedric picked up the intercom transmitter resting on his desk, his face carved from frozen granite.
He keyed the mic.
"Julian," Cedric said, his voice completely level, echoing across the rainy courtyard with absolute disdain.
"You spent fifteen years hiding in the jungle like a coward because you were terrified of a dead man’s ghost."
"You couldn't take this house when you had two legs and thirty men."
"And you certainly won't take it tonight from a man who is going to put you in the ground where you belong."
A pause stretched across the line, heavy with venom.
"Breach the doors," Vance commanded coldly.
"Kill the lawyer. Bring me the girl."
The heavy oak doors exploded inward under the force of a shaped breaching charge.
Wood splinters rained across the room like shrapnel.
Through the smoke, four heavily armored mercenaries charged through the opening, their weapon lights cutting through the darkness.
Cedric didn't flinch.
He raised the submachine gun with lethal precision, unleashing a devastating hail of fire that tore through the lead two attackers before they could clear their barrels.
Tomaso fired from the flank, dropping the third man with a clean shot through the visor.
The fourth mercenary lunged forward, tackling Tomaso to the ground, the two men rolling across the Persian rug in a vicious struggle for a combat knife.
Another shadow appeared in the doorway.
Tall, silver-haired, wearing a black tactical coat and carrying a customized silver revolver.
Julian Vance.
His cold, pale eyes swept the study, instantly bypassing the carnage on the floor and locking directly onto Cedric behind the desk.
"You really are your father's son," Vance said, raising the revolver.
"Stubborn, arrogant, and blind to the inevitable."
Before Vance could pull the trigger, I surged up from behind the desk, grabbing the heavy brass desk lamp and hurling it with all my strength.
The lamp struck Vance’s forearm, deflecting his aim just as the revolver roared.
The heavy bullet plowed into the mahogany desktop inches from Cedric’s fingers.
Vance cursed, swinging his left hand back and striking me across the face with the back of his fist.
The force of the blow knocked me to the floor, my vision exploding into brilliant white sparks.
"Insolent little rat," Vance snarled, stepping toward me with the gun leveled at my forehead.
"Just like your mother."
"VANCE!" Cedric’s roar shook the very foundations of the room.
What happened next defied everything the medical charts had written.
Driven by a surge of pure, primal adrenaline and terrifying protective rage, Cedric didn't reach for a fallen weapon.
He placed his hands on the heavy mahogany desk and forced himself up.
His legs shook violently beneath him, muscles screaming in agony, nerves firing like burning wires through his lower spine.
He stood.
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He took one agonizing, impossible step forward, using the momentum of his rage to throw himself across the desk.
His massive hands clamped onto Vance’s throat with the force of an industrial vice, dragging the older man violently down onto the shattered glass of the study floor.
