Chapter 8 - THE SIEGE AT THE GATES
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The mid-morning sky over Lake Forest turned dark gray as heavy storm clouds rolled in from the west.
The silence across the fifty-acre Moretti estate was unnatural and dense, broken only by the cawing of crows in the bare oaks.
Upstairs in the master suite, I sat on the floor of the walk-in closet, holding Noah tightly against my chest.
The closet had been reinforced with three-inch ballistic steel plates and had its own independent ventilation system.
Noah held his wooden horse in one hand and my silver cross necklace in the other, sensing the danger in the air.
“Mommy, is Daddy fighting the bad men?” Noah asked in a small, trembling voice.
“Daddy is making sure we stay safe, sweetheart,” I whispered, kissing the top of his dark head.
“He’s the bravest man in the world.”
Suddenly, a deafening explosion ripped through the silence of the estate, rattling the heavy steel doors of the suite.
The blast was followed immediately by the staccato roar of heavy automatic gunfire echoing from the front driveway.
Salvatore’s two box trucks had rammed through the wrought-iron perimeter gates, detonating breaching charges against the outer stone pillars.
Dozens of armed mercenaries in tactical gear poured out of the vehicles, firing assault rifles toward the mansion’s front portico.
Dominic stood on the second-floor stone balcony, completely shielded by reinforced balustrades.
He held a tactical carbine, firing with cold, surgical precision into the advancing attackers.
Every round that left his weapon found its mark.
Beside him, Marcus and eight seasoned Moretti enforcers returned fire, raining lead down upon the courtyard like a localized thunderstorm.
Salvatore Bellini scrambled out of the cab of the second truck, wielding a submachine gun, his eyes wild with cocaine and madness.
“Moretti!” Salvatore shrieked over the deafening clatter of gunfire.
“Give me the boy and I’ll let you die on your knees!”
“You won't live to see the boy, Salvatore!” Dominic shouted back, his voice cutting through the smoke and noise.
The eastern perimeter claymores detonated with a thunderous roar, sending a wall of shrapnel through the mercenaries attempting to flank the gardens.
Three of Salvatore’s men dropped instantly, their weapons clattering across the wet gravel.
Realizing his ground assault was collapsing under the overwhelming firepower of the estate’s defenses, Salvatore turned toward the service entrance.
He kicked open the side basement door, leading four remaining mercenaries into the subterranean corridors of the mansion.
Dominic saw the maneuver instantly through his tactical scope.
“Marcus!” Dominic barked into his headset.
“Hold the balcony!”
“Salvatore is inside the service tunnels!”
Dominic sprinted off the balcony, his boots pounding down the grand marble staircase two steps at a time.
He knew the floorplans of this estate better than any living soul; he had played in these corridors as a boy and defended them as a man.
He dropped into the narrow stone hallway outside the wine cellars just as the first mercenary rounded the corner.
Dominic fired twice, dropping the man before his rifle could clear the doorway.
He moved like a shadow through the smoke, relentless, lethal, and fueled by a father’s unyielding protective fury.
A second attacker leaped from an alcove, swinging a combat knife toward Dominic’s throat.
Dominic stepped inside the blade’s arc, grabbed the man’s wrist, and snapped it with a sickening crack.
He drove his elbow into the mercenary’s temple, dropping him senseless to the concrete floor.
At the end of the long corridor, the heavy steel door leading to the fourth-floor private elevator stood slightly ajar.
Salvatore had already entered the code he had stolen from Vanessa’s personal notes.
The elevator was rising toward the master suite.
Toward Claire.
Toward Noah.
Dominic’s heart seized with raw, blinding terror.
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He didn't wait for the secondary lift.
He hurled himself toward the emergency stairwell, taking the concrete steps four at a time, sprinting upward with every ounce of strength in his body.
