Chapter 8 - TEETH IN THE DARK
Nero struck Elena from behind with the force of a battering ram.
One hundred and thirty pounds of solid muscle hit her between the shoulder blades.
Elena shrieked as her feet slipped on the wet iron grating of the catwalk.
Her gun flew from her hand, tumbling twenty feet through the air and clattering onto the concrete floor below.
"Shoot the dog!" Moretti screamed, his focus shattering.
That single second was all Gabriel needed.
Gabriel drew his Sig Sauer with blinding speed.
Crack.
The hollow-point round took the guard on Moretti’s left directly in the chest.
Crack.
The second guard crumpled before his rifle could clear his hip.
"Olivia! Move!" Gabriel roared.
Olivia didn't think.
She ran.
Her sneakers slipped on the wet cement, but she drove her legs forward with desperate, explosive power.
Moretti swung his heavy revolver toward her.
Bang.
The bullet struck the concrete inches behind Olivia’s heel, spraying stone chips into her calf.
She didn't feel it.
She hit the floor in a baseball slide, wrapping her entire body around Lily’s chair just as Gabriel had ordered.
She threw her gray overcoat over Lily’s head, shielding her daughter with her own flesh.
"I’ve got you, baby," Olivia sobbed into the blanket.
"Close your eyes!"
Gunfire erupted like a rolling thunderstorm across the warehouse.
Gabriel didn't take cover.
He moved forward with terrifying, machine-like precision.
Three shots.
Two more shooters went down behind the pallet stacks.
On the catwalk above, Elena scrambled across the iron mesh, screaming in pain as Nero circled her like a panther.
"Victor! Help me!" Elena shrieked, clutching her bleeding forearm.
Moretti backed toward a waiting black SUV near the rear loading dock.
"Forget the woman!" Moretti yelled to his remaining two men.
"Get the truck out!"
Moretti scrambled into the passenger seat of the SUV.
The engine roared to life with a deafening V8 growl.
The heavy vehicle accelerated across the warehouse floor, tires smoking against the slick concrete.
Straight toward Olivia and Lily.
The blinding high beams pinned Olivia to the floor.
She looked up into the roaring grill of the truck, twenty feet away and closing fast.
She pulled the 9mm pistol from her coat pocket.
Her hands were shaking.
She raised the weapon with both hands, aiming directly at the driver’s windshield.
Before she could squeeze the trigger, Gabriel threw himself across her sightline.
He stood directly in the path of the oncoming vehicle.
He raised his weapon with one hand.
He didn't blink.
He emptied the entire magazine into the front left tire.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
The tire shredded into black ribbons.
The SUV veered violently to the right, its steel bumper smashing into an iron support pillar with the sound of a train derailment.
The radiator exploded in a cloud of white steam.
Gabriel sprinted to the driver’s door, ripped it open, and hauled the dazed driver onto the floor.
One strike of Gabriel’s pistol butt knocked the man unconscious.
Gabriel rounded the hood toward the passenger side.
The door hung open.
Moretti was gone.
A trail of dark red blood led toward the open rear fire escape door leading down to the riverbank.
Gabriel turned back toward Olivia.
She was still on her knees, cutting Lily’s ropes with the edge of a broken glass shard from the floor.
The ropes fell away.
Lily threw her small arms around Olivia’s neck, burying her face into her mother’s shoulder, weeping uncontrollably.
Gabriel walked toward them.
His white shirt was torn and stained with soot and blood.
He dropped down to both knees beside Olivia.
He reached out, his large, trembling hand resting on the back of Lily’s small head.
"She’s safe," Gabriel breathed, his voice cracking for the first time.
"She’s safe, Olivia."
Olivia looked up at him.
Blood was dripping down Gabriel’s left forearm, soaking through his cuff.
"You're hit," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"It's nothing," Gabriel said dismissively.
Above them on the catwalk, the sharp click of a rifle chamber echoed through the rafters.
Elena stood at the top of the metal fire stairs.
She held an abandoned pump-action shotgun, aiming straight down at Gabriel’s back.
Her face was bloody, her hair tangled, her eyes wild with murderous madness.
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"Nobody leaves here alive, Gabriel," Elena hissed from the shadows.
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