Chapter 12 - A Mother's Fury
The helicopter hovered forty feet above the estate's stone courtyard.
Rope dropped.
Lorenzo didn't hesitate.
Despite his shattered collarbone, despite the agonizing stitches pulling in his
chest, he gripped the rappel line and slid into the darkness like an avenging
demon.
Dante hooked my harness.
"Hold onto me, Clara!" Dante shouted over the deafening roar of the rotors.
I wrapped my arms around Dante's tactical vest.
We plunged into the freezing downpour, hitting the wet cobblestones with a heavy
roll.
Gunfire erupted all around us.
The courtyard was a warzone.
Bodies of Moretti guards and Vance mercenaries littered the manicured gardens.
The south gate stood wide open, blown apart by C4 charges.
“Contact left!” Dante roared, raising his rifle.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
Two Vance gunmen perched near the fountain collapsed into the blood-streaked
water.
Lorenzo was already twenty yards ahead of us, moving with lethal, terrifying
speed.
His rifle barked with single, controlled shots.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Every round found a throat or a chest.
He kicked open the heavy oak doors of the mansion’s main entrance and charged
inside.
The grand foyer was destroyed.
The Renaissance paintings were shredded by shrapnel.
Marble columns were pockmarked with bullet holes.
On the grand staircase lay Captain Thomas—the traitor who had sold the
gates—with three bullet holes in his traitorous chest.
Dr. Rossi had apparently found a shotgun before they breached.
"LEO!" I screamed, running past Dante up the marble staircase.
"Clara, wait for sweep!" Dante yelled, but I was deaf to his commands.
I reached the second-floor corridor.
The carpet was scorched by flashbang grenades.
At the end of the hall, outside Leo’s bedroom door, stood Dr. Elena Rossi.
She was slumped against the wall, clutching a bleeding shoulder, an empty
double-barreled shotgun lying at her feet.
"Dr. Rossi!" I cried, skidding to my knees beside her.
"Where is he? WHERE IS MY SON?"
"The... the secret passage behind the bookcase," Dr. Rossi gasped, coughing
weakly.
"Two men breached the bedroom... they took him... they’re heading toward the
private docks on the river!"
She grabbed my wrist with trembling, bloody fingers.
"Marcus is with them."
The world stopped spinning.
"What?" I whispered.
"Marcus Dawson..." Dr. Rossi breathed.
"He wasn't Vance’s prisoner. It was an act. He traded Leo to Vance to save his
own skin."
A cold, volcanic fury erupted inside my veins.
Every tear I had ever cried for that man turned to liquid fire.
Every prayer I had ever whispered for his soul turned to poison.
"Dante! Get Dr. Rossi to the trauma bunker!" I ordered, my voice dropping an
octave into pure ice.
I didn't wait for Lorenzo.
I knew this estate’s layout now.
I turned on my heel, running down the back service stairs toward the underground
tunnel that led directly to the estate's private Hudson River boat dock.
The tunnel was damp, cold, and smelled of river water and gasoline.
My emerald dress was soaked in mud and rain, ripped at the hem, but I ran like a
cheetah through the dark.
In my hands, the Glock 19 felt light as a feather.
At the end of the tunnel, the heavy iron blast doors were unlocked.
Beyond lay the wooden covered dock.
A sleek, fifty-foot offshore cigarette boat was idling at the slip, twin
thousand-horsepower engines rumbling through the water.
Through the driving rain on the dock, I saw them.
Two Vance mercenaries carrying duffel bags of stolen bearer bonds.
And standing near the stern of the boat was Marcus Dawson.
He wore a dry waterproof jacket, holding my screaming, terrified son by the
wrist.
"Shut up, you little brat!" Marcus barked, shaking Leo violently.
"You’re my ticket out of this country! Stop crying!"
"Mommy! MOMMY!" Leo shrieked, struggling against his father's grip.
"MARCUS!" I screamed, stepping out of the tunnel onto the slippery wooden
planks.
Marcus froze.
He whirled around, his eyes bulging in utter shock.
"Clara?" he gasped.
"How the hell are you here?"
The two Vance mercenaries turned, raising their submachine guns.
BANG! BANG!
I didn't think.
I didn't hesitate.
My father's training took over my hands.
I fired twice.
The first mercenary took a nine-millimeter hollow-point directly between his
eyes and tumbled backward into the freezing river.
The second mercenary fired a wild burst that chewed into the wooden ceiling
above my head.
BANG!
A third shot from my Glock shattered his throat.
He choked, dropping his weapon and collapsing across the dock.
Marcus stared at me in absolute, horrified disbelief.
The pathetic, weeping waitress he had abandoned four years ago was standing
thirty feet away, holding a smoking pistol with eyes of pure granite.
"Clara... baby..." Marcus stammered, his voice trembling as he backed toward the
edge of the boat, pulling Leo in front of him like a human shield.
"Listen to me! I did this for us! The twelve million... we can go to Costa Rica
together! We can be a family again!"
"You left him to starve, Marcus," I said, my voice steady, slow, and deadly.
I walked toward him, one heavy step at a time.
"You left him to die in the cold."
"And now you used him as a shield."
"I'm his father!" Marcus shrieked, backing toward the boat's railing.
"You won't shoot me! You don't have the guts!"
Suddenly, a shadow rose out of the mist behind Marcus.
Lorenzo stepped off the roof of the boathouse, landing onto the deck of the
cigarette boat with the silent grace of a mountain lion.
He didn't draw a gun.
Lorenzo grabbed Marcus Dawson by the back of his neck and threw him across the
deck like a sack of garbage.
Marcus hit the fiberglass bulkhead with a sickening crunch.
Leo broke free, running across the dock with his little arms outstretched.
"MOMMY!"
I dropped the gun, fell to my knees, and caught my son in my arms.
I buried my face in his wet neck, weeping violently as his small hands clung to
my ruined emerald dress.
"I have you, baby. Mommy has you. Nobody will ever take you again."
Behind us, on the deck of the boat, Marcus scrambled to his knees, coughing
blood.
He looked up into the towering, terrifying silhouette of Lorenzo Moretti.
"Please..." Marcus whimpered, crawling backward toward the stern.
"Moretti, please! I'll give you the accounts! I'll give you everything!"
Lorenzo looked down at him with cold, pitiless gray eyes.
"You gave your family a plastic dinosaur," Lorenzo whispered.
"And they gave it to me."
Lorenzo reached down, grabbed Marcus by his jacket, and lifted him over the
churning, roaring twin propellers of the idling boat.
"Lorenzo," I called out softly from the dock, holding Leo’s ears so he couldn't
hear.
Lorenzo looked back at me through the rain.
Our eyes met.
There was no need for words.
Lorenzo looked back at Marcus.
"May God have more mercy on your soul than you had on your son," Lorenzo said.
May you like
And with one smooth motion, Lorenzo threw him into the dark, churning depths of
the Hudson River.
