Chapter 6 - The Siege of Via Lincoln
Arya burst through the apartment door, locking all three deadbolts behind her and throwing the heavy iron security chain into place.
Dante met her in the hallway. He had heard her frantic footsteps coming up the stairs. His dark eyes instantly locked onto the paring knife in her shaking hand, and then onto the sheer, unadulterated terror written across her face.
"Arya!" Dante commanded, grabbing her shoulders with firm, grounding hands. "What happened?"
"Marco," Arya gasped out, her chest heaving as she struggled for air. "He's outside. He... he tracked you here, Dante! He has men on the street!"
Dante’s posture shifted instantly. The vulnerable father vanished, replaced in a microsecond by the deadly, cold syndicate lord. His dark eyes burned with lethal intent.
"Did they lay a hand on you?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.
"No, I... I slashed at one of them with the knife and ran," Arya panted. "He told me he was going to force me to write a note to you... he wants to make me disappear!"
Before Dante could answer, a heavy, metallic crash echoed from the street level.
BOOM.
The iron street door downstairs was being breached.
Elena cried out from the bedroom, a sound of pure terror. "Dante! Arya!"
Dante didn't hesitate. He pulled Arya behind his broad frame, ushering her back into the bedroom. He reached into his leather jacket and drew a sleek, matte-black semi-automatic pistol from a concealed holster. He racked the slide with a smooth, practiced flick of his wrist.
"Stay behind me," Dante ordered, his voice cold, calm, and utterly devoid of fear.
"Dante, what is happening?" Elena sobbed from the bed, clutching her chest, her oxygen concentrator whining as her breathing turned chaotic.
"Marco is downstairs," Dante said smoothly, walking toward the bedroom doorway and taking a tactical position behind the doorframe. "He made a fatal mistake. He came after my family."
"He has men, Dante!" Arya yelled, grabbing a heavy brass lamp from the bedside table, preparing to use it as a weapon. "You don't have your bodyguards!"
Dante cast a quick glance back at her over his shoulder. A dark, terrifying smile touched the corner of his lips—the smile of a man who welcomed the violence. "I don't need an army to kill snakes in my house, Arya."
He reached into his pocket with his left hand, pulled out a encrypted satellite phone, pressed a single speed-dial button, and brought it to his ear.
"Karl," Dante spoke into the phone, his voice flat. "Code Red on Via Lincoln. Marco Valente is breaching the building with a strike team. Bring the heavy unit. Block both ends of the street. Execute everyone carrying a weapon."
He ended the call and dropped the phone back into his pocket.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps began echoing up the stone stairwell outside the apartment. Slow. Confident. Multiple men.
"Dante!" Marco’s raspy voice echoed through the thick apartment door from the landing. "I know you're in there! Open the door, nephew! Let's talk about the future of the Valente family!"
Dante didn't answer. He stood motionless beside the bedroom doorway, his weapon raised, his eye locked onto the apartment's front door down the short hallway.
"You brought a dead woman and a bastard girl into our affairs, Dante!" Marco taunted from the landing. "You're weak! Just like your father was! Give me the girl, and I'll let you walk back to your palace in Palermo!"
Silence stretched through the apartment.
Then, the heavy wooden front door exploded inward.
A shotgun blast tore through the lock, shattering the wood into splinters. The door swung open, and a heavily armed man in a tactical vest stepped across the threshold, his weapon raised.
Dante fired twice.
BANG. BANG.
The shots were deafening in the narrow apartment. Two heavy 9mm rounds struck the intruder precisely in the chest, dropping him instantly onto the hallway rug.
A second gunman pushed past his fallen comrade, spraying automatic gunfire down the corridor. Plaster exploded off the walls, dust filling the air in thick clouds.
Dante ducked behind the doorframe as bullets ripped through the hallway. He leaned out with lethal fluidity and fired three rapid shots. The second gunman collapsed with a strangled gurgle, his weapon clattering to the floor.
"Arya! Cover your mother!" Dante roared over the ringing in her ears.
Arya threw herself over Elena’s frail body on the bed, shielding her mother with her own frame as plaster dust rained down on them. Elena was weeping hysterically, her hands clutching Arya’s coat.
Outside on the landing, Marco’s voice lost its smug composure. "Kill them! Kill all of them! Throw a grenade through the door!"
Dante’s eyes darkened. He reached into his coat, pulled a secondary magazine from his belt, and reloaded his pistol with a blindingly fast movement.
"Marco!" Dante shouted, his voice echoing over the ringing gunshots. "You touched my wife twenty-four years ago! You threatened my daughter today! You don't leave this building alive!"
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Dante stepped fully out into the dust-filled hallway, stepping over the bodies of Marco's men, advancing toward the front landing like an unstoppable force of nature.
Gunfire erupted again in the corridor—a deafening chorus of violence that shattered the quiet afternoon of Via Lincoln.
