Chapter 8 - THE BLOOD IN THE SNOW
The window glass imploded into the living room in a shower of glittering shards.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Heavy caliber rounds—fifty-caliber anti-material bullets—tore through the eight-inch cedar logs.
A federal marshal near the front door was thrown backward onto the rug, blood spraying across the stone hearth.
“OFFICER DOWN!” Vance roared, drawing his service weapon and diving behind the kitchen counter.
Gabriel didn't yell.
He threw his body across Claire’s lap, dragging her down between the heavy stone fireplace and the heavy oak sofa.
The stone hearth was three feet thick, built from native river rock.
The only safe cover in the room.
Plaster, wood splinters, and glass rained down upon them like hail.
Claire covered her head, her face buried into Gabriel’s neck.
She could smell the clean soap of his collar, mixed now with the sharp, acidic tang of cordite.
“Stay behind the masonry,” Gabriel whispered.
His voice was dead level.
No panic.
No hesitation.
He pulled a Benelli M4 tactical shotgun from beneath the sofa cushions—a weapon he had spotted the moment they walked into the cabin.
He racked the slide with a crisp, heavy CLACK.
Outside in the frozen forest, the roar of modified snowmobiles echoed off the mountain ridges.
High-intensity floodlights snapped on through the pine trees, blinding white beams cutting through the smoke-filled living room.
A loudspeaker boomed from the timberline:
“DIRECTOR VANCE! YOU ARE HARBORING A FEDERAL FUGITIVE AND CONTRABAND WITNESS!”
“SURRENDER GABRIEL DELUCA AND THE HAYES WOMAN!”
“OR WE BURN THE COMPOUND WITH THERMITE!”
It was Nathan’s voice.
Amplified.
Confident.
Cruel.
Claire felt a wave of cold, venomous fury wash through her veins, replacing the terror.
Nathan Brooks was standing out in that forest, wearing a designer winter coat, treating her and her unborn child like line items on a balance sheet.
Gabriel saw the look in her hazel eyes.
A slow, vicious smile curved his lips.
“You look like you want to shoot him yourself, Claire.”
“Give me a gun,” she said.
“No,” Gabriel replied gently.
“You stay with the baby.”
“I’ll do the work.”
Gabriel turned to Vance behind the kitchen counter.
“How many men did Silas bring?”
“Thermal scans show twenty-four operators,” Vance called back, reloading his Glock with bloody fingers.
“Two squads flanking from the north ridge.”
“One squad covering the access road.”
“They have thermite grenades, Gabriel.”
“If they ignite this cedar, we have two minutes before the roof collapses.”
Gabriel checked the shotgun’s magazine tube.
Seven rounds of magnum buckshot.
He pulled two spare shells from his pocket and pressed them into his belt.
“There’s an old root cellar beneath the kitchen pantry,” Gabriel told Vance.
“Concrete bunker built into the mountain granite.”
“Take Claire down there.”
“Lock the steel door from the inside.”
Claire grabbed Gabriel’s arm.
Her fingers dug through his wool sleeve with desperate strength.
“Gabriel, you can’t fight twenty-four men alone!”
Gabriel looked down at her.
He reached out and gently laid his palm against her cheek.
His touch was warm.
Steady.
“Claire,” he said softly, leaning down until their foreheads touched.
“I spent fifteen years being the devil this city feared.”
“Tonight, I get to be the man who protects his family.”
He kissed her lips, hard and deep, tasting the salt of her tears.
“I am coming back for you,” he promised.
“You hold our daughter.”
He shoved her toward Vance.
“Go!”
Vance grabbed Claire’s arm, pulling her across the shattered linoleum into the pantry.
The heavy steel trapdoor lifted with a groan of iron hinges.
Claire looked back through the smoke.
Gabriel stood tall in the center of the shattered living room.
He racked the Benelli shotgun.
May you like
The front door blew inward in a hurricane of white-hot thermite fire.
Gabriel stepped directly into the blaze.
