Chapter 7 - Blood and Velvet
The gunshot was deafening in the narrow concrete corridor. The bullet struck the traitorous guard squarely in the chest. He gasped, stumbling backward against the wall, before sliding down into a lifeless heap.
The blinded mercenary was still thrashing on the floor, screaming and clutching his eyes. Meline, her arms shaking violently and her heart hammering in her ears, raised the heavy pistol and aimed it at him. "Don't move!" she screamed.
The mercenary froze, lifting his bloody hands in surrender.
Meline scrambled over to Mario, who was groaning on the floor, clutching his bleeding shoulder. "Mario! Mario, wake up!"
Mario opened his eyes, blinking away the daze. He looked from the dead traitor to the blinded mercenary, then up at Meline, who was holding a heavy semi-automatic handgun while dressed in a magnificent navy velvet gown stained with gunpowder soot.
"Mother of God," Mario wheezed, a bloody grin spreading across his face. "The Boss really picked a terrifying woman."
"Can you stand?" Meline asked frantically, helping him pull himself up against the wall.
"I can stand," Mario grunted, taking his spare gun from his belt. He tapped the access code into the titanium door, which hissed open with a heavy hydraulic hum. "Get inside, Miss Hayes. This room has its own air supply and communications array."
"No," Meline said, her voice turning fiercely resolute. "Lorenzo is still up there fighting. We have the internal security monitors in this safe room, don't we?"
Mario blinked. "Yes... the entire estate’s camera system feeds into the control panel inside."
"Then we help him," Meline demanded, grabbing Mario’s arm and dragging him inside the bunker.
The safe room was a high-tech command center equipped with dozens of screens displaying live feeds of the mansion. Meline immediately rushed to the main console. On the monitors, she saw the chaos unfolding in the grand foyer.
Lorenzo was fighting like a man possessed. He moved through the shadowed corridors of his home with lethal precision, taking down mercenaries one by one with calculated, brutal efficiency. But the main feed showed Hector Lombardi’s top commander—the scarred man who had attacked Meline’s shop yesterday—leading four heavily armed men toward the library where Lorenzo was currently taking cover.
They were setting up a heavy explosive charge on the library doors to blow Lorenzo out into the open.
Meline grabbed the internal intercom microphone on the console. "Lorenzo! Can you hear me?"
A second later, Lorenzo’s voice came through the speaker, raspy and breathless over the static of his tactical earpiece. "Meline?! Where are you? Are you in the safe room?"
"I am in the control room with Mario," Meline shouted into the mic. "Listen to me! The scarred man and four mercenaries are outside the library’s north doors. They are planting C4 on the hinges! Do not exit through the north entrance!"
On the screen, Meline watched Lorenzo pause behind a heavy oak desk inside the library. He looked up toward the ceiling camera and gave a sharp nod. "Where are they vulnerable?"
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Meline scanned the floor plan monitors rapidly. Her tailor’s eye for spatial geometry and structural layout kicked in instantly. "The wall behind the mahogany bookcase in the library shares a ventilation alcove with the hallway where they are standing. The plaster behind the middle shelf is thin!"
"Understood," Lorenzo’s cool voice echoed. "Stay inside, cara. I am ending this."
