Chapter 6 - The Shattered Glass
The explosion blew the glass patio doors off their tracks with an ear-splitting roar.
A concussive wave of heat and flying shrapnel tore through the dining room. Norah was knocked off her feet, but before she could hit the marble floor, Gabriel’s body slammed over hers, his heavy frame shielding her completely from the raining glass.
Alarms wailed through the penthouse—a shrill, automated siren that bathed the dark rooms in pulsing crimson light.
“Stay down!” Gabriel barked into her ear.
He rolled off her, drawing a customized matte-black pistol from a concealed holster beneath his waistband. Smoke poured into the kitchen, smelling of sulfur, burning carpet, and magnesium.
Through the shattered terrace, four men in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles breached the room, their suppressed automatic weapons spraying controlled bursts into the living quarters.
Thwip-thwip-thwip.
The plaster walls exploded in clouds of white dust.
Gabriel didn't panic. He moved with the terrifying, lethal precision of a veteran soldier. He leaned around the kitchen island, fired twice—two distinct cracks that echoed through the penthouse—and the lead intruder collapsed backward over the railing, plummeting twenty stories to the pavement below.
“Leo!” Gabriel roared into his radio.
“Breach on the lower garage, boss!” Leo’s voice crackled through static. “Elevators are disabled! They cut the main power grid! We’re fighting our way up the stairwell!”
A hit squad. A coordinated, military-grade assault designed to wipe out the entire Hayes leadership in one strike.
Norah crawled on her belly beneath the stainless steel prep table, her ears ringing, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Another intruder rounded the corner of the kitchen, his carbine leveled directly at Gabriel’s blind spot.
Norah didn't think.
She grabbed the heavy, six-quart cast-iron Dutch oven resting on the bottom shelf—the very pot she had used to cook the beef stew—and hurled it with all her strength against the man’s knee.
CRACK.
The iron smashed into the mercenary’s patella. The man screamed, his leg buckling beneath him, his weapon discharging wildly into the ceiling.
Gabriel spun instantly. In one fluid motion, he drove the heel of his palm upward into the man’s chin, snapped his neck with a sickening crunch, and grabbed the dropped submachine gun before it hit the floor.
He looked down at Norah, who was covered in white drywall dust, clutching a heavy iron skillet like a club.
A wild, breathless laugh escaped Gabriel’s throat. “Remind me never to make you angry in the kitchen.”
“Shut up and shoot them!” Norah yelled.
Gabriel raised the carbine and laid down a deafening wall of suppressing fire toward the terrace, forcing the remaining two assassins back toward the ledge. Outside, the searchlights of approaching police helicopters began slicing through the rain, their sirens wailing from the streets below.
The mercenaries knew the mission had failed. They threw smoke canisters onto the terrace and rappelled over the side, disappearing into the Boston fog.
Silence descended upon the ruined penthouse, broken only by the hiss of fire sprinklers and the drip of water from the ceiling.
Gabriel lowered his weapon, his chest heaving. He turned to Norah, reaching down to pull her up from the floor. His hands checked her arms, her face, her shoulders with frantic, desperate urgency.
“Are you hurt? Did they hit you?”
“I’m fine,” Norah gasped, clinging to his forearms to steady her shaking legs. “Gabriel... I’m fine.”
His eyes were wild, dark with an adrenaline-fueled fury that looked ready to burn the city to ashes. But as he looked at her face, the rage melted away, replaced by an emotion so raw, so undisguised, it stole the breath from her lungs.
May you like
He pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her with crushing force.
Norah didn't pull away. She buried her face against his damp shirt, listening to the furious, steady pounding of his heart—the heart that was beating because she had refused to let him starve.
