Chapter 7 - THE AMBUSH AT MIDNIGHT
Red emergency lights flashed across the walls of the mansion, turning the luxury estate into a war zone.
Luca pulled me up from the balcony floor, dragging me inside my suite and slamming the reinforced heavy wood doors shut.
"Stay low!" he commanded, pulling a heavy silver pistol from a concealed holster beneath his shoulder harness. He checked the magazine with a sharp, practiced flick of his wrist.
"Leo!" I screamed, panic surging through my veins like ice water. "Luca, Leo is in the nursery!"
"I'm going to get him," Luca rasped, grabbing my shoulders, his eyes fierce and unyielding. "Avery, look at me! You stay in this room, behind the bed, do you understand me?!"
Before I could answer, the sound of heavy automatic gunfire erupted from the ground floor below! Shouts, shattering glass, and deep explosions shook the floorboards beneath our feet.
The Romano family had launched a full-scale assault on the estate.
Luca tore open the suite door and sprinted down the hallway toward the nursery. I didn't stay behind the bed. The thought of my sister's baby alone in a room during an armed assault was an unbearable torture I couldn't endure.
I grabbed a heavy bronze statue from my bedside table and ran out into the hallway behind him.
The corridor was filled with smoke and flashing red security lights. Down at the far end of the hall, two dark-suited men carrying submachine guns breached the double doors of the nursery!
"NO!" I shrieked!
Luca fired three rapid shots down the hallway. The gunshots were deafening, echoing like cannon fire in the enclosed space. Both intruders fell to the carpeted floor instantly.
We tore into the nursery.
Leo was screaming at the top of his lungs, huddled in the corner of his crib, his arms covering his small head just as the window glass shattered from a secondary explosion in the courtyard below!
I rushed over, scooping Leo into my arms, holding his head tightly against my chest to muffle the terrifying noise. "I've got you, baby! I've got you!"
Luca stood in front of us, his body acting as a human shield, aiming his weapon down the dark corridor outside.
Gabe burst through the nursery doorway, covered in soot and drywall dust, holding a smoking assault rifle. "Boss! They breached the south gate with a reinforced truck! It's Dominic Romano himself! He brought twenty men!"
Luca's face hardened into absolute, terrifying steel. "He came for my son."
"We need to get to the panic room in the basement!" Gabe yelled over the deafening sound of gunfire below. "The tunnel leads out to the boathouse on the river!"
"Take Avery and Leo," Luca ordered, without turning his back on the hallway. "Get them into the tunnel. I'll hold the main staircase."
My heart stopped. "No! Luca, no! I'm not leaving you!"
Luca turned to me, stepping close, grabbing the back of my neck, and pressing a fierce, desperate kiss against my lips.
"Listen to me, Avery," Luca rasped, his eyes burning with a fierce, unshakeable devotion. "You are my family now. You and Leo are everything I have left. Get into the tunnel. I will meet you at the river."
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Before I could argue, Gabe grabbed my arm, pulling me firmly toward the hidden service staircase at the rear of the nursery.
I looked back one last time. Luca stood tall in the smoky, red-lit hallway, raising his weapon as the heavy footsteps of Dominic Romano's men pounded up the grand staircase.
