Chapter 8 - The Viper Strikes at the City Gates
Three days later, Gabriel’s counter-offensive was ready.
He needed to sign the revised syndicate charters at the Federal Plaza banking vault in downtown Manhattan—a neutral territory where all five families maintained their safe deposit assets.
“You stay here,” Gabriel told Sarah, adjusting his cufflinks in front of the full-length mirror.
“The compound is in full lockdown. Fifty men on the perimeter. You and Leo will be safe.”
Sarah walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek between his shoulder blades.
“Don’t do anything reckless, Gabriel,” she whispered.
“Leo needs a father. I… I need a husband.”
Gabriel turned in her embrace, capturing her chin between his fingers and lifting her face to meet his gaze.
He kissed her deeply, hard and possessive.
“I am coming back to you, Sarah,” he promised against her lips.
“I always will.”
An hour later, Gabriel was gone, escorted by a six-vehicle motorcade.
The estate fell into an eerie, heavy silence.
Sarah spent the afternoon in the library with Leo, helping him finish a colorful puzzle of the solar system.
The mansion seemed peaceful, but the tension among the guards was palpable.
Radios crackled every ten minutes with perimeter checks.
At 2:45 p.m., the power cut out.
The chandeliers went dark.
The humming air filtration system stopped dead.
Emergency red backup lights clicked on, bathing the library in a sinister crimson glow.
Then came the sirens.
A high-pitched screech echoed through the corridors: Perimeter breached at Gate 4.
Sarah grabbed Leo instantly, lifting him into her arms despite the searing pain in her healing ribs.
“Sarah?” Leo whimpered, his arms locking around her neck.
“What’s happening?”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she whispered, her voice remarkably steady.
“We’re going to play a hiding game.”
The heavy mahogany doors of the library burst open.
Marco ran in, his tactical vest loaded with magazines, a carbine rifle raised.
“Mrs. Rossi! Panic room, now!” Marco shouted.
“It’s a multi-vector assault. Valenti mercenaries blew the rear transformer! They’re inside the courtyard!”
Before they could step into the corridor, heavy automatic fire shattered the library’s stained-glass windows.
Marco raised his weapon and returned fire, shouting into his radio as spent brass shells clattered across the parquet floor.
“Take the boy to the vault behind the master closet!” Marco yelled over the deafening noise.
“Move!”
Sarah ran.
She sprinted through the smoke-filled hallway, carrying Leo tight against her chest.
Behind her, the sounds of war tore through the mansion—shouts in Italian, shattering wood, grenade concussions rocking the foundations.
As she reached the entrance of the master wing, a masked gunman in gray urban camouflage stepped out from the servant staircase, his submachine gun aimed directly at her chest.
“Drop the kid,” the man barked in a thick Eastern European accent.
Sarah didn't drop Leo.
She turned her body, putting her own back to the barrel just as she had done in the sunroom.
She prepared for the impact.
BANG.
The gunshot was deafeningly close.
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the burning metal.
Nothing happened.
The masked gunman collapsed forward, a neat red hole drilled between his eyes.
Standing behind him at the top of the stairs, breathing heavily and holding a smoking .45 caliber handgun, was Gabriel.
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He had abandoned the motorcade halfway to Manhattan the moment the perimeter alarms pinged his private satellite link.
He had come back for them.
