Chapter 7 - The Breach
Smoke poured into the opulent bedroom, thick and chemical. Through the haze, three men in black tactical gear carrying automatic rifles burst into the room.
Silas reacted with lethal, terrifying speed. Before the first intruder could raise his weapon, Silas raised his gun and fired two precise rounds into the man's chest. The guard collapsed like a sack of bricks.
Silas ducked behind a heavy velvet armchair as bullets tore through the room, shredding the priceless tapestry walls and shattering the glass balcony doors into a million sparkling shards.
Maya was trapped near the drafting table. She screamed as a stray bullet chipped the plaster inches above her head.
"Maya! Get down!" Silas yelled, throwing himself across the exposed gap between the chair and the table. He landed over her body, wrapping his massive frame around her, shielding her head with his arms as dust and debris rained down upon them.
The second intruder charged forward, but Silas rolled onto his back, firing three shots upward through the smoke. The intruder stumbled backward, crashing through the shattered balcony window and falling to the stone courtyard three stories below.
The third man—a broad, heavily scarred Russian holding a short-barreled shotgun—stepped through the ruined doorway.
"Sterling!" the man bellowed in a heavy accent. "Nikolai sends his regards!"
Silas went to raise his weapon, but the slide locked back—empty.
In that fraction of a second, Maya’s survival instincts overrode her fear. She reached out, grabbed the heavy wooden drafting stool beside her, and slammed it with all her strength into the back of the gunman’s knees.
The Russian grunted, his balance breaking as his leg buckled.
It was all the time Silas needed. Like an apex predator springing from the dark, Silas tackled the massive man to the ground. They crashed into the marble hearth. Silas grabbed a heavy brass fireplace poker sitting nearby and drove it down with brutal, merciless force.
The room fell into a sudden, suffocating silence, broken only by the wail of distant security sirens and the heavy, ragged gasps of Silas Sterling.
Silas stood up slowly from the body of the hitman. His face was covered in soot and blood, his hair disheveled, his navy suit torn. He turned his head slowly, his storm-gray eyes sweeping the ruined room until they landed on Maya, who was curled up against the base of the drafting table, trembling violently.
He dropped the bloodied iron poker. It clattered against the marble floor with a sharp ring.
Silas walked over to her, sinking to his knees on the glass-strewn floor. He reached out with shaking, blood-stained hands, gently pulling her out from under the table and cradling her body against his chest.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice raw, stripped of all cold detachment. "Maya... look at me. Are you hit?"
"N-No," she sobbed, burying her face into the curve of his neck, uncaring of the blood and dirt on his clothes. She held onto him with desperate strength, her fingers clutching his shirt. "I'm okay. I'm okay."
Silas closed his eyes, burying his face in her dark hair, his massive body shivering with a sudden, violent release of tension.
"You risked your life," Silas murmured, his voice thick with a emotion he had spent twenty years burying. "You saved me."
May you like
"I couldn't let him kill you," Maya whispered, pulling back slightly to look into his dark eyes.
Silas stared at her face, seeing no deceit, no fear of him—only pure, unadulterated devotion. The cold, ruthless crime lord snapped. He leaned down and captured her lips in a fierce, desperate, consuming kiss.
