Chapter 4 - The Thunder from AboveThe silence that followed the empty click of Leandro’s pistol was more suffocating than the gunfire.
Dominic let out a harsh, booming laugh from behind his SUV. “Out of ammunition, little brother?! How tragic! The great Leandro Moretti, executed in a rotting wooden shack by the lake!”
Dominic stepped out from behind his vehicle, flanked by four remaining guards, their rifles trained on the front door.
Leandro stood up slowly inside the shattered doorway. He didn't look defeated. He wiped a streak of blood from his cheek, tossed his empty pistol onto the floorboards, and turned his head to look back into the kitchen.
His slate-gray eyes found Elara beneath the table.
“Stay down,” Leandro murmured, his voice gentle despite the madness surrounding them. “It is almost over.”
“Leandro, they’re coming in!” she sobbed, crawling out from beneath the table, her hands cut by broken glass.
Before Dominic’s men could reach the porch steps, the air above Blackwater Lake began to vibrate.
It started as a low, bone-rattling hum that vibrated through the floorboards of the cabin, growing louder and more violent by the second. The trees along the shoreline whipped wildly as a massive, twin-engine Black Hawk helicopter dropped out of the morning clouds, hovering less than fifty feet above the water.
The side doors of the helicopter slid open.
Four tactical marksmen dressed in full black body armor lowered their heavy rifles.
THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!
Suppressed high-caliber sniper rounds slammed into the hoods and windshields of the five Escalades with devastating force. Engine blocks ruptured in clouds of black steam. Dominic’s remaining guards screamed in panic, dropping their weapons as they realized they were completely outgunned.
Two heavy ropes dropped from the Black Hawk’s belly, slapping onto the wet gravel of the driveway.
Eight heavily armed tactical operatives slid down the ropes, landing smoothly on the ground, surrounding Dominic’s men before the dust could even settle.
Leading the tactical team was a tall, scarred man in his late fifties with slicked-back silver hair—Marco, Leandro’s chief of security.
Marco walked up the path, his weapon lowered, and kicked Dominic’s feet out from under him. Dominic crashed onto his knees in the mud, his cigar falling into the puddle, his face pale with absolute, horrified shock.
“Boss,” Marco said, stepping onto the ruined wooden porch and bowing his head slightly toward Leandro. “The Northern Division has secured the perimeter. The remaining threat has been neutralized.”
Leandro stepped out onto the porch, looking down at his kneeling half-brother.
“Take Dominic to the warehouse in Jersey,” Leandro ordered, his voice cold as a tombstone. “Stripped of his rank, his accounts, and his title. He will answer to the Commission by nightfall.”
“Understood, Boss,” Marco nodded. He then gestured toward the shattered cabin. “And the civilian inside?”
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Leandro turned his head, his slate-gray eyes locking onto Elara, who was standing inside the ruined doorway, holding a piece of wood for defense, her eyes wide with overwhelming shock.
“She is not a civilian,” Leandro stated quietly, walking back into the cabin toward her. “She is the woman who saved my life.”
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