Chapter 10 - The Highway Ambush
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The following afternoon, we set out toward the ruins of the Valenti estate in the Hudson Valley.
Dante's intelligence team had discovered that Julian Valenti kept a secondary subterranean vault buried beneath the old carriage house.
That vault contained the original ledgers, deeds, and encrypted drives that proved Romano's fifteen-year campaign of extortion and murder.
With that evidence, we could dismantle Romano's entire syndicate legally while Dante crushed his street operations permanently.
Our convoy consisted of three armored Mercedes SUVs traveling along the winding, tree-lined Palisades Parkway.
Dante sat beside me in the rear seat of the center vehicle, his laptop open as he reviewed satellite surveillance feeds.
Orion lay stretched across our feet, his ears twitching occasionally at the hum of the engine.
"The estate has been abandoned since the fire," Dante explained, glancing out at the dense autumn forest flashing past the tinted windows.
"Nature has reclaimed most of the grounds, but the subterranean foundation remains intact."
"I don't know if I'm ready to see it," I admitted, my fingers tightly interlaced with Dante's.
"You won't have to face it alone," Dante said, lifting my hand to press a gentle kiss against my knuckles.
Suddenly, the lead SUV in our motorcade exploded into a blinding fireball.
The shockwave slammed into our vehicle, jolting us sideways against the highway guardrail with a deafening screech of metal.
"Ambush!" Dante's driver yelled, slamming his foot onto the accelerator to evade the burning wreckage.
Out of the dense tree line on the right side of the parkway, two heavy industrial dump trucks barreled directly into our path.
The second truck smashed violently into our driver's side, spinning our armored SUV across two lanes before it ground to a halt against the concrete divider.
Automatic gunfire immediately erupted like a relentless hail of lead against our bulletproof glass.
Dante reacted with lightning speed, shoving me down onto the floorboards and shielding my body with his own.
"Stay down!" he commanded, drawing a customized matte-black semi-automatic pistol from his shoulder holster.
Orion was already on his feet, snarling with primeval fury as he bared his massive fangs at the shattered windows.
Dante kicked open the passenger-side door, firing three controlled, lethal shots that dropped two masked gunmen advancing toward our vehicle.
"Luca! Marco! Suppressive fire on the treeline!" Dante roared into his tactical radio.
The surviving security guards in our rear vehicle deployed into defensive positions, returning fire with assault rifles.
Smoke from the burning lead vehicle filled the air, stinging my eyes and carrying the terrifying stench of burning fuel and gunpowder.
Through the haze, I saw a gunman with an RPG launcher stepping out from behind a stalled delivery truck, aiming directly at Dante.
"Dante, watch out!" I screamed.
Before Dante could swing his weapon around, Orion exploded from the interior of the SUV like a black missile.
The massive hound covered thirty feet in a split second, launching his hundred-and-forty-pound frame straight at the launcher's operator.
Orion's jaws clamped shut on the gunman's arm, driving the man violently into the asphalt before he could pull the trigger.
The rocket fired harmlessly into the sky, exploding among the treetops in a brilliant orange shower of sparks.
A second gunman panicked and sprayed a burst of automatic fire toward Orion.
A sharp yelp of pain tore through the air as a bullet grazed the hound's shoulder, throwing him off balance.
"No!" I screamed, every instinct of self-preservation evaporating into thin air.
I scrambled out of the armored vehicle into the open crossfire, ignoring Dante's desperate shout behind me.
I grabbed the collar of Orion's harness with both hands, using all my strength to drag the bleeding hound behind the engine block of our SUV.
Dante stepped into the opening with lethal, cold precision, putting two bullets through the chest of the gunman who had fired at Orion.
Within forty-five seconds, Dante's reinforcement team arrived from the nearby safehouse, surrounding the ambush zone and wiping out the remaining attackers.
The gunfire ceased, replaced by the crackle of burning tires and the hiss of ruptured radiators.
Dante dropped to his knees beside me, his hands frantically checking my face and shoulders for wounds.
"Are you hurt? Did they hit you?" he asked, his voice shaking with a terror I had never heard from him before.
"I'm fine," I gasped, holding Orion's bleeding shoulder tightly against my chest.
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"He took a bullet for you, Dante."
"We need to save him."
