Chapter 12 - Abduction in the Dead of Winter
The rescue team hit the Poughkeepsie safehouse at 11:15 p.m., extracting Victor’s son without firing a single unsilenced round.
With his son secured, Victor placed the call to Don Valenti, feeding him the false intelligence: Gabriel Rossi was leading a small convoy along Route 9 to strike the Valenti docks.
Valenti took the bait, dispatching half of his garrison to set an ambush on Route 9.
However, the serpent had one final, desperate venom sac.
While Gabriel’s main assault force mobilized toward the Hudson Valley, a rogue mercenary unit hired by Carmine Moretti—who had gone completely off the grid—staged a desperate suicide raid against the Rossi estate’s underground garage.
They bypassed the perimeter entirely by entering through the old storm drainage tunnels beneath the estate.
Sarah was in Leo’s bedroom, tucking the boy into bed with his favorite bedtime story, when the floor vibrated with a deep, muffled explosion from the basement.
The lights flickered and died.
The heavy oak door of the bedroom was kicked off its hinges.
Two men in black tactical gear stormed in, their tasers crackling with blue electrical fire.
“Get away from him!” Sarah screamed, grabbing a heavy brass desk lamp and swinging it with all her strength.
The heavy metal base struck the first man across the cheekbone, shattering his jaw and dropping him to the floor.
The second man lunged forward, grabbing Sarah’s hair and slamming her against the wall.
Pain exploded through her healing shoulder.
“Mommy!” Leo screamed in terror.
“Run, Leo! Panic room!” Sarah fought like a wildcat, sinking her teeth into the man’s gloved wrist until blood seeped through the fabric.
The man grunted in rage, driving a heavy fist into her stomach.
The breath was knocked completely out of Sarah’s lungs.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping for air as black spots danced across her vision.
The mercenary grabbed her by the collar of her sweater and hauled her up, pressing a chloroform rag over her mouth and nose.
“Quiet, little Donna,” the man hissed.
“Carmine wants you alive. He wants Rossi to watch you bleed.”
Sarah fought with every ounce of strength she had left, kicking and clawing at his face, but the sweet, chemical fumes overwhelmed her nervous system.
Her limbs grew heavy.
Her vision faded into black.
The last sound she heard was Leo’s distant, frantic screams echoing down the marble corridor as the boy reached the reinforced panic room and slammed the emergency lock.
When Gabriel’s phone rang ten minutes later, Marco’s voice was shaking.
“Boss… they hit the east basement tunnel. Leo is safe inside the vault.”
A terrifying pause.
“And Sarah?” Gabriel’s voice was dangerously low.
“They took her, Boss. Carmine has her at the abandoned shipping yard on the frozen Hudson.”
In the back of the command SUV, Gabriel Rossi crushed his encrypted phone in his bare fist until the glass shattered and sliced into his palm.
His eyes turned to pure, unadulterated murder.
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“Turn the convoy around,” Gabriel ordered his entire army.
“We are not leaving a single man alive tonight.”
