Chapter 6 - THE FRACTURED SHIELD
Smoke began to seep through the ventilation shafts.
The muffled staccato of automatic gunfire resonated from six floors below.
Dante did not panic.
His movements were deliberate, surgical.
He walked to the bedside, lifted Gemma into a sitting position, and wrapped her in a dark Kevlar vest.
She hissed in pain as the Velcro strapped across her wounded side.
“I know,” Dante murmured, his forehead resting briefly against hers.
“I know it hurts. Stay with me.”
“I have a gun in my desk,” Gemma said through clenched teeth.
“The Walther PPK you gave me last Christmas.”
Dante smiled faintly.
“Good girl. But you won't need it.”
He lifted her once more, carrying her toward the private elevator behind the dressing room.
The steel door opened to a reinforced panic shelter built into the core of the penthouse.
The room was equipped with its own life support, communication grid, and armory.
He placed her on the leather cot inside.
“Enzo is holding the tenth-floor bottleneck,” Dante said, handing her a loaded pistol.
“If anyone opens that door who isn't me or Enzo, you empty the magazine into their chest.”
“Dante, don't go down there,” she pleaded, catching his wrist.
Her knuckles were white.
“They have numbers.”
“They have mercenaries,” Dante countered.
“I have loyalty.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
His lips were warm against her cold skin.
“Wait for me.”
He stepped out and sealed the pneumatic door.
The heavy steel locked with a final, mechanical clunk.
Dante turned into the red-lit hallway.
He picked up a modified Benelli tactical shotgun from the wall mount.
He checked the shells.
Twelve gauge.
Solid slugs.
He took the emergency stairs down to the tenth floor.
The stairwell was filled with drifting gray smoke.
Spent brass casings rolled down the concrete steps.
At the landing, two Lombardi soldiers lay wounded, being dragged to safety by medics.
Enzo was pinned behind a reinforced titanium security door.
Sparks flew as armor-piercing rounds struck the metal frame.
“How many?” Dante asked, sliding in beside Enzo.
Enzo spat blood from a cut lip.
“Eighteen down. At least ten still pushing up from the ninth floor.”
“They’re using flashbangs and thermal sights.”
“Corvo mercenaries,” Dante observed.
“Top tier.”
“They’re expensive,” Enzo said.
“Salvatore is spending his entire treasury to kill that girl.”
“He knows she’s the witness that destroys him,” Dante said.
He racked the slide of the Benelli.
“Cover my advance.”
“Dante, wait—!”
Dante kicked the heavy stairwell door open.
He stepped directly into the smoke-filled corridor.
Three mercenaries in digital camouflage turned their rifle barrels toward him.
Dante fired.
The shotgun roared in the enclosed space.
The blast lifted the first shooter off his feet, driving him through the drywall.
Dante pivoted, firing a second slug into the chest of the second man before he could acquire the target.
The third mercenary dove into an open office doorway.
Dante advanced without slowing his pace.
He was a hurricane of controlled violence.
Enzo and four Lombardi soldiers surged behind him, laying down suppressive fire that chewed the corridor walls to dust.
The remaining mercenaries began to retreat toward the elevator shafts.
They had expected an executive in a bespoke suit.
They had found a demon who owned the night.
Within six minutes, the ninth and tenth floors were silent.
The surviving invaders lay broken in the debris.
Dante stood over the wounded leader of the Corvo squad.
The man was clutching a shattered shoulder, his tactical radio squawking frantically.
Dante stepped on the man’s rifle, snapping the sling.
He kicked the radio toward his own boots.
A voice crackled through the small speaker.
Salvatore Falcone.
“Report! Is the girl dead? Is Lombardi dead?”
Dante picked up the radio.
He pressed the talk button.
“Salvatore.”
Silence froze the line.
The sound of Salvatore’s ragged breathing echoed from the speaker.
“Dante...” the old Don whispered.
“You’re running out of men, old man,” Dante said.
May you like
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“And I haven't even left my building yet.”
