Chapter 3 - The Siege of Lake Shore DriveThe hallway outside the dining room turned into a smoking tunnel of lead and plaster dust as three more mercenaries converged on our position, laying down a suppressing fire that chewed through the expensive oil paintings and carved mahogany moldings.
"Cover your ears!" I yelled back at the boys, pressing my back flat against the reinforced stone pillar beside the doorway.
I didn't wait for them to finish their reload. Training honed from decades of underworld turf wars took over. I popped out from behind the pillar, double-tapping two targets with clinical precision. The first took a round to the shoulder, dropping his weapon with a howl of agony; the second caught a bullet through the throat and dropped instantly without a sound.
"Boss!" Marcus’s voice crackled through my lapel comms, muffled by the sound of heavy gunfire downstairs. "We’ve got a second breach at the rear kitchen entrance! Four more hostiles are trying to flank your position via the service stairs!"
"Hold the service stairs, Marcus! Let them come up the main landing—I want them funneled into the kill zone!"
"Copy that! Setting up the claymores on the second-floor landing now!"
I ducked back inside the dining room, breathing heavily. The smell of cordite and burnt gunpowder filled the air, mixing with the faint scent of lemon polish.
Elena was kneeling beside the four boys, whispering soothing words in Spanish, keeping them pinned safely behind the massive mahogany sideboard.
"Alejandro," Elena called out over the ringing in my ears, holding up a heavy steel key ring. "The panic room... it’s not just a shelter. Sofia had a satellite phone and an encrypted transponder installed. It connects directly to a private airstrip in Gary, Indiana. A chartered jet is on standby 24/7."
I stared at her, stunned. "Sofia planned all of this?"
"She knew Vance was closing in six months before she died," Elena confessed, tears spilling over her lashes. "She made me swear that if anything ever happened to her, and Vance’s net got too tight, I would bring the boys to you—because she knew that even if you were angry, even if you hated her for keeping them a secret, you were the only man in North America powerful enough to keep them alive."
A heavy lump formed in my throat.
Sofia hadn't hidden the boys out of malice or distrust of my love. She had hidden them to create a delayed-fuse bomb of protection, knowing that one day, when the wolves finally broke through the gates, their biological father—the most feared mafia boss in Chicago—would unleash absolute hell to defend them.
"She miscalculated one thing," I said, a grim, humorless smile touching my lips as I checked the remaining rounds in my magazine.
"What's that?" Elena asked.
"She thought I'd need a reason to tear Victor Vance apart," I murmured, racking the slide. "I was already looking for an excuse."
BOOM!
A dull, concussive blast shook the entire western wing of the mansion, followed by a muffled roar from the service stairs. Marcus’s claymore mines had just done their work.
"Boss! Service stairs are clear!" Marcus shouted over the comms. "But Vance has reinforcements pulling up outside! They brought a Battered-Ram truck! They’re going to breach the front double doors!"
"Let them break the doors," I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "Get to the perimeter armory in the basement. Suit up every remaining loyal guard. We're not defending the house anymore."
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"Copy that, Boss. What's the play?"
"We take the fight to them."
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