Chapter 6 - The Siege of the EstateThe crash came at 2:14 AM.
It wasn't a subtle knock. It wasn't a polite chime of the front intercom. It was the sound of the massive wrought-iron security gates at the base of the estate’s cliffside drive being violently sheared off their reinforced hinges by a speeding armored truck.
I bolted upright in the grand four-poster bed of the east wing suite, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Beside me, the bed was already empty.
The indentation on Dominic’s pillow was still warm, but he was gone.
I didn't panic. I didn't hesitate. I threw off the silk duvet, slipped my bare feet into a pair of heavy combat boots I had hidden in the closet ever since the warehouse shootout at Pier 4, and reached into the bedside drawer. My fingers wrapped around the cold, checkered grip of the small Sig Sauer P365 Dominic had insisted I keep within arm's reach at all times.
A muffled burst of automatic gunfire echoed from the lower courtyard, followed by the shattering of double-paned stained-glass windows down in the main foyer.
They breached the perimeter.
The Tarasov syndicate hadn't given up. With the federal audit closing in on their political allies like the Vances, Nikolai Tarasov—the patriarch of the Boston faction—was making a desperate, suicidal final play to decapitate the Russo empire at its root.
The bedroom door flew open.
Carla stood in the doorway, her iron-gray hair slightly disheveled, a heavy 12-gauge shotgun clutched expertly in her weathered hands.
"They're in the house, Miss Hastings—Mrs. Russo," Carla corrected herself sharply, her eyes fierce. "Victor is holding the ground floor stairwell, but the back service elevator is compromised. We need to move to the panic room in the west wing vault immediately."
"Where is Dominic?" I demanded, racking the slide of my pistol with a practiced, fluid motion that made Carla nod in grim approval.
"He went to the roof," Carla said grimly. "He’s drawing their heavy fire away from the residential quarters."
"Like hell he is," I said.
I didn't run toward the panic room. I sprinted down the private corridor toward the grand oak staircase overlooking the main foyer.
The sight below was absolute carnage.
Smoked glass, shattered crystal chandeliers, and splintered mahogany furniture littered the grand entrance hall. Three men in tactical black gear wearing Tarasov ski masks lay motionless on the marble floor. Victor, bleeding sluggishly from a graze on his temple, was crouched behind a marble pillar, rhythmically firing his submachine gun down the hallway until his magazine clicked dry.
"Victor!" I shouted over the din of shattering glass.
He looked up, his eyes widening in horror. "Mrs. Russo! Get back upstairs! This isn't an ER, you shouldn't be—"
"How many are left?" I interrupted, dropping into a tactical crouch beside him, my pistol raised toward the shadowy archway leading to the kitchen wing.
"At least six in the mudroom!" Victor panted, reloading his weapon with frantic efficiency. "They bypassed the biometric locks using a military frequency jammer!"
Before Victor could stop me, I pulled a small, heavy smoke grenade—one of the tactical surplus items Dominic had left in the hall closet during our last weapons drill—from my pocket, pulled the pin with my teeth, and tossed it blindly around the marble corner into the kitchen corridor.
Hiss.
Thick, blinding white smoke instantly billowed out into the foyer, choking the air with the smell of burning phosphorus and synthetic pepper.
Coughing and swearing erupted from the hallway as masked mercenaries stumbled blindly out of the smoke, their tactical visors fogging up.
Victor didn't hesitate. He stood up and fired a suppressing sweep, dropping two of them instantly.
I took aim, my breathing steadying the way it always did when a code blue was called, and squeezed the trigger twice, dropping a third merc who lunged toward the grand staircase with a tactical knife.
"Clear the foyer!" a deep, resonant voice boomed from the upper balcony.
I looked up.
Dominic stood on the curved wrought-iron railing of the third-floor gallery, his dark shirt torn at the shoulder, blood staining his left sleeve, holding an assault rifle with terrifying, absolute calm.
He didn't look like a businessman. He looked like the war god of a fallen empire.
With two rapid, deafening shots, Dominic took out the remaining mercenaries hiding behind the marble columns on the ground floor. The last man standing dropped his weapon, fell to his knees, and raised his hands in surrender.
Silence descended upon the ruined foyer once more, broken only by the crackle of a stray fire in the library hearth and the sound of heavy breathing.
Dominic vaulted over the third-floor railing, dropping ten feet to the marble floor below with cat-like agility, and sprinted across the foyer.
He didn't check the surviving mercenary. He didn't look at Victor.
His dark eyes found me standing amidst the smoke and shattered glass, holding a smoking pistol with my ER scrubs replaced by combat boots and unyielding resolve.
Dominic crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat, grabbing my face in both of his hands, his thumbs aggressively wiping a smudge of gunpowder off my cheek.
"I told you to stay in the east wing," he growled, his voice trembling with a mixture of furious adrenaline and profound, helpless adoration.
"And I told you," I answered, looking straight into his fierce, unyielding eyes, "I'm not a doll. I'm iron wrapped in silk."
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Dominic let out a breathless, broken laugh, pulling me against his chest so hard I could feel the fierce, frantic pounding of his heart against mine.
"Yes," he whispered fiercely against my hair as sirens finally began to wail in the distance, screaming up the cliffside road to pick up the pieces of the shattered siege. "My iron. Forever."
