Chapter 7 - Ambush on Michigan Avenue: Bullets Through the Glass
BANG!
The shot didn't come from the boathouse.
It came from behind us.
A high-powered rifle round smashed through the rear windshield of our Escalade, showering Frank and me in tempered safety glass.
The second SUV fifty yards behind us erupted into flames as an RPG or heavy explosive device struck its engine block, flipping the heavy vehicle onto its roof in a blinding fireball.
“AMBUSH!” Matteo roared, diving across the center console and drawing his weapon.
Automatic gunfire tore into the side panels of our vehicle.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
The reinforced armor plating took the brunt of the impacts, but the side windows were spiderwebbing with white fractures.
“Down! Get down on the floor!” Luca shouted, reaching back and shoving my head below the seat line.
Vanessa shrieked, curling into a ball in the footwell.
Frank Delaney grabbed a heavy crowbar from beneath the passenger seat, his eyes blazing with adrenaline.
“They boxed us in!” Matteo yelled, shifting into reverse and slamming the accelerator.
The Escalade roared backward, tires smoking against the wet gravel, but a dark commercial flatbed truck swung across the access road, blocking our retreat completely.
Four men in tactical vests jumped from the bed of the truck, leveling submachine guns at our windshield.
“Marco! Take out the truck gunners!” Luca commanded into his headset.
From three hundred yards away, on top of the rusted grain silos, Marco’s sniper rifle cracked with rhythmic, terrifying precision.
Crack!
The lead gunner on the truck snapped backward, collapsing onto the asphalt.
Crack!
The second gunner dropped behind the wheel.
“Matteo, hit the gas! Ram the gate!” Luca yelled.
Matteo shifted into drive and floored it.
The six-ton armored SUV surged forward, smashing through the chain-link gate leading onto the wooden pier.
The timber planks groaned and cracked beneath our weight as we slid to a halt twenty feet from the boathouse entrance.
The boathouse doors flew open.
Salvatore Bellini stepped onto the covered porch, holding a pump-action shotgun in one hand and the silver-tipped cane in the other.
Behind him stood three mercenary guards with assault rifles.
“Welcome home, Luca!” Salvatore’s voice boomed over the sound of the rain and crashing waves. “Did you really think I’d let you set up your little perimeter without checking the perimeter myself?”
Luca kicked his door open and stepped out onto the rain-swept pier, using the heavy armored door as a shield.
“Let Vanessa go, Salvatore! You got what you wanted!”
Salvatore laughed, a harsh, grating sound.
“Vanessa served her purpose twenty-eight years ago when she burned your warehouse, Luca! She’s an expensive liability now!”
Inside the car, Vanessa heard him.
She sat up, her face covered in blood from glass scratches, her eyes wide with total, shattering realization.
“Dad?” she whispered through the shattered window.
“Shut up, you stupid girl!” Salvatore shouted back. “You couldn't even keep the safe combination straight! If I hadn't hired professionals to follow Frank from Indiana, you would have let this whole empire slip through our fingers!”
Salvatore racked the slide of his shotgun.
“Kill them all,” Salvatore ordered his men. “Leave Frank’s body for the harbor police. Let them think it was a gang dispute.”
The mercenary on Salvatore’s left raised his rifle, aiming directly at Luca’s head.
I didn't think.
I didn't hesitate.
I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out the SIG Sauer P365 Luca had given me, flipped the safety switch with my thumb, rested the barrel on the shattered window frame, and squeezed the trigger.
Crack!
The bullet struck the mercenary in the shoulder, knocking him off balance just as he fired, sending his burst harmlessly into the wooden roof planks.
Luca seized the opening.
He raised his handgun and fired three rapid shots through the porch railing, dropping the second mercenary instantly.
Matteo opened up with his Glock, suppressing the third guard.
“Rachel! Frank! Move to the boathouse!” Luca yelled.
May you like
Frank kicked his door open, grabbed my arm with his scarred, steel-strong grip, and hauled me out of the car.
We sprinted across the wet, slippery planks of the pier through the crossfire, diving through the open double doors of the boathouse just as a grenade detonated behind our rear bumper, throwing a geyser of wood splinters and seawater into the night sky.
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