Chapter 13 - Blood in the Garden
|
Two black sport utility vehicles with tinted windows slammed to a halt across the gravel driveway of the cottage.
Vincent’s instincts, honed by fifteen years of underworld warfare, ignited in an instant.
He recognized the modified bumper grilles immediately.
The Castiglione family had followed him from Boston.
Anthony Castiglione, the ruthless head of the rival East Coast syndicate, had been looking for Vincent’s throat for three years.
Vincent had broken protocol by traveling alone, without an armed escort, blinded by his desperate need to see Claire.
His reckless search had inadvertently led wolves directly to the sanctuary of the woman and child he had vowed to protect.
“Get down!” Vincent bellowed, his voice transforming from broken remorse back into thunderous command.
The first spray of automatic gunfire shattered the glass roof of the greenhouse into thousands of falling, razor-sharp shards.
Claire shrieked, throwing her entire body over baby Leo as dirt and shattered glass rained down around them.
Vincent did not hesitate for a microsecond.
He did not dive for cover.
He sprinted across the exploding room, throwing his broad, heavy frame directly over Claire and their son.
Bullets ripped through the cedar benches, tearing clay pots into ceramic shrapnel and wood splinters.
A heavy round tore through the meat of Vincent’s left shoulder, the impact spraying warm blood across the greenhouse floor.
Vincent grunted in agony, his teeth grinding together so hard a molar cracked, but his arms remained locked around Claire like steel shields.
“Vincent!” Claire cried out in terror beneath him, her hands clutching Leo tightly against her chest.
“Stay down, Claire!” he roared through the spray of gunfire.
“Keep him covered!”
Another high-caliber bullet caught Vincent in the right side of his ribs, spinning his torso, but he refused to collapse.
He reached down to his ankle holster—the only weapon he had carried, intended solely for suicide if he ever lost his mind completely.
He drew the Glock 19 with his uninjured hand, rolled smoothly onto his back, and leveled the barrel toward the doorway.
Three masked gunmen stepped through the shattered glass, their weapons raised to spray the room.
Vincent fired with surgical, cold-blooded precision.
Three rapid shots echoed through the greenhouse like cannon blasts.
The first two shooters collapsed instantly onto the gravel floor, neutralized before their rifles could swing toward the bassinet.
The third gunman fired wildly as he fell, a stray round catching Vincent dead center in the upper chest.
Vincent let out a wet, rattling gasp, his back slamming hard against the cedar workbench.
The remaining attackers in the driveway, hearing the swift elimination of their point team, panicked as sirens began to wail in the distance.
Arthur Vance’s private security contractors, stationed three miles away in town, were closing in fast.
The tires of the SUVs screeched on the wet gravel as the surviving hitmen fled into the gathering coastal fog.
Silence returned to the shattered greenhouse, broken only by the sound of falling raindrops and Leo’s terrified crying.
Vincent’s gun clattered from his limp fingers onto the bloodstained soil.
He slid downward against the workbench, leaving a thick smear of dark crimson along the cedar planks.
His hands pressed uselessly against his chest, where dark, frothy blood bubbled through his wet wool coat.
Claire scrambled out from beneath the debris, tears streaming down her pale, soot-stained face.
Leo was completely unharmed, crying hysterically but untouched by a single shard of glass or bullet.
“Vincent!” Claire screamed, dropping to her knees beside him and pressing her hands over his bleeding chest.
Vincent looked up at her through half-lidded, fading eyes, a faint, bloody smile touching his lips.
“He’s… safe?” Vincent whispered, his voice drowning in his own chest fluid.
“He’s safe, Vincent, you saved him!” she sobbed, pressing down with all her strength to stem the catastrophic hemorrhage.
“Don't you dare close your eyes!”
Vincent reached up with trembling, blood-soaked fingers, his thumb brushing softly against her cheek.
May you like
“I… I didn't… arrive late… this time,” he choked out softly.
Then his hand went completely limp, falling heavily into the potting soil as his eyes rolled back.
