Chapter 5 - The Ambush at the Gallery
By the fifth day of my stay at the Costa estate, the tension in the city had escalated dramatically.
Dominic’s men were involved in small skirmishes with Vance’s syndicate across the docks and warehouse districts. Yet inside the estate, Dominic treated me with an attentive, quiet respect that I had never experienced in my life.
He didn't treat me like a helpless victim. He asked for my opinions on art, shared his meals with me, and listened intently when I spoke about my dreams of going back to college to study history.
On Friday afternoon, Chloe begged her brother to let us leave the house for an hour.
"I need air, Dominic!" Chloe pleaded in his study. "There is a private, secure art gallery downtown owned by our family cousin. Nobody knows we are going!"
Dominic looked at his sister, then looked at me. I offered him a small, pleading look of my own, feeling the walls of the mansion closing in on me.
"Fine," Dominic conceded reluctantly. "Two armored vehicles. Six guards. You stay inside the gallery for forty-five minutes only."
An hour later, Chloe and I were walking through the quiet, sunlit marble halls of the Costa Gallery downtown. The building was completely closed to the public, guarded by four Costa men at the main entrance and two inside.
I was admiring an Italian oil painting when the sharp, terrifying sound of automatic gunfire echoed from the street outside.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The glass windows of the front entrance shattered into thousands of sharp fragments.
"Down!" the lead Costa guard shouted, pulling his weapon and shoving Chloe and me behind a massive marble pillar.
Shouts, heavy footsteps, and the acrid smell of gunpowder instantly filled the gallery.
Four men in tactical gear and dark masks burst through the shattered entrance, firing indiscriminately into the exhibition rooms.
"Where is the girl?!" a voice shouted over the chaos. "Vance wants the waitress!"
Chloe gasped, clutching her belly in terror. "Sadie... they tracked us!"
The guard standing before us stepped out to return fire, but was hit in the chest, collapsing onto the marble floor. The second guard was forced back into a side hallway, cut off from us.
One of the masked men stepped around the marble pillar, his weapon raised, his eyes locking onto me.
"Found you, bitch," he sneered, stepping forward to grab my hair.
I didn't freeze.
Drawing upon the same raw, fierce survival instinct that had saved Chloe at the diner, I grabbed a heavy bronzed sculpture from a nearby pedestal and swung it with all my strength.
The heavy bronze struck the man directly across his temple. He stumbled back, groaning in pain, dropping his assault rifle onto the floor.
I kicked the rifle away, grabbed Chloe’s hand, and pulled her toward the gallery's rear service exit.
Before we could reach the door, the metal service gates were kicked open from the outside.
A tall figure stepped through the smoke and rain, holding a dark pistol, his face contorted in absolute, terrifying fury.
Dominic.
He fired three precise shots without missing a beat, dropping the remaining two attackers instantly.
He rushed across the room, stepping over the fallen men, and pulled both Chloe and me into his massive, protective embrace. His breathing was rapid, his chest heaving, his dark eyes searching every inch of my face for injuries.
"Are you hurt?" Dominic growled, his hands cradling my face with a fierce, trembling force. "Sadie, speak to me! Are you hit?!"
"I'm okay..." I breathed, clutching his forearms, feeling the insane adrenaline coursing through his body. "Chloe is okay too."
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Dominic pulled me against his chest, holding me so tightly I could hear the rapid, furious pounding of his heart against his ribs.
"Marco Vance just signed his own death warrant," Dominic whispered into my hair, his voice dark, lethal, and absolute.
