Chapter 5 - The Ambush
The sharp screech of the security siren shattered the intimate moment instantly.
Dante moved with terrifying speed. In a fraction of a second, his hand was inside his jacket, drawing a dark metal handgun. He stepped firmly in front of Sophie, shoving her behind the reinforced steel pillar near the cellar entrance.
"Stay here," Dante commanded, his voice cold and commanding. "Do not move until Marco comes for you."
"Dante, what's happening?" Sophie cried out over the sound of the alarm.
"The perimeter was breached," he said coldly. "Falcone."
He sprinted up the stone stairs, leaving Sophie alone in the underground vault.
The sound of gunfire echoed from the floor above—muffled thumps that vibrated through the stone walls. Sophie pressed her back against the cool pillar, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She wasn't a soldier. She was a woman who knew soil compositions and fermentation cycles. But as the sounds of struggle intensified above, she realized she couldn't just sit and wait to be captured or killed.
Sophie looked around the laboratory setup. Her eyes landed on several bottles of high-concentration industrial cleaning agents, highly volatile sulfur compounds, and pure ethanol used for cleaning testing equipment.
A dark spark of determination lit up inside her. If the Falcones thought they were walking into a house full of defenseless targets, they were wrong.
Using a glass beaker, Sophie quickly mixed ethanol with a concentrated sulfur solution, creating a crude, highly pungent chemical agent that, when exposed to air, released a blinding, suffocating gas. She poured the liquid into three glass flasks, sealing them with corks.
Grabbing the flasks, she crept up the cellar stairs.
The main hallway was a scene of chaos. Smoke filled the air, and glass from the broken chandelier littered the marble floor. Two of Dante’s security guards were down, while Marco was crouched behind a overturned dining chair, exchanging fire with three men dressed in tactical gear.
Dante was near the study door, firing with lethal accuracy, but more attackers were pushing through the shattered front entrance.
"Dante!" Sophie shouted from the doorway.
Dante spun around, his eyes widening in fury and fear when he saw her. "Sophie! I told you to stay down!"
One of the masked attackers spotted her and redirected his submachine gun toward the hallway. "Got one over here!"
Before the man could open fire, Sophie hurled the first glass flask across the room. It shattered against the wall right above the attackers.
The instant the chemical mixture hit the air, a thick, yellow cloud of suffocating sulfur gas exploded outward. The attackers instantly dropped their weapons, clutching their eyes and coughing violently as the stinging gas burned their nasal passages.
"Marco, now!" Dante shouted.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Marco and Dante moved in, quickly neutralizing the incapacitated attackers.
Dante sprinted toward Sophie, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her back into the safety of the study, slamming the heavy reinforced door shut and locking it.
He pushed her back against the desk—the very desk where she had been drinking his wine twenty-four hours earlier. He was breathing heavily, his suit jacket torn, a small scratch bleeding along his jawline.
"Are you insane?" Dante roared, his eyes blazing with furious passion. "You could have been killed!"
"I saved your chief of security!" Sophie yelled back, her adrenaline surging. "And I incapacitated three of their men with high-school chemistry!"
Dante stared at her, his chest heaving. The rage in his eyes slowly transformed into something raw, fierce, and utterly unyielding.
"You are the most infuriating, brilliant, dangerous woman I have ever met," he breathed.
He reached out, cupped her face in both of his hands, and pulled her into a fiery, demanding kiss.
Sophie gasped against his lips, but she didn't pull away. She wrapped her arms around his neck, sinking into the kiss, tasting the metallic tang of gunpowder and the rich warmth of his skin. The world outside the room vanished—the alarms, the gunfire, the feud. There was only Dante, pressing her against the desk, his hands possessive and urgent against her waist.
When he finally broke the kiss, their foreheads rested together, both of them gasping for air.
"You're supposed to be my maid," Dante whispered, a breathtaking smile touching his lips.
"I quit the maid position," Sophie panted, her fingers tangled in his hair. "I think I'm overqualified."
A heavy knock at the study door broke the spell.
"Boss!" Marco’s voice called out from the hallway. "The house is secure. The remaining attackers pulled back. But we've got a problem."
Dante released Sophie slowly, though his eyes lingered on her lips for a moment longer. He wiped the blood from his jaw, pulled his jacket straight, and unlocked the door.
"What is it, Marco?"
May you like
Marco stepped inside, looking bruised but alive. He looked at Sophie with newfound respect before turning to Dante.
"We checked the leader’s phone," Marco said darkly. "They weren't here to kill you, Dante. They were here for her. Falcone found out Julian Bennett’s daughter was working in your house. They came to kidnap her."
