Chapter 6 - Shadows at the Door
Before Clara could answer, a small head poked out from the kitchen doorway.
“Mommy? Who’s that loud man?”
Little Leo rubbed his sleepy eyes, clutching a stuffed toy whale. He looked directly at Julian, tilting his head with an expression of innocent curiosity that mirrored Julian's own childhood portraits.
Julian felt a tear slip down his cheek—the first time he had cried since he was a boy. He dropped slowly to one knee, looking across the room at his son.
“Clara, please,” Julian pleaded softly, his gaze locked between his wife and his child. “Let me—.”
CRACK.
The front window of the bakery shattered into a million glittering shards.
“Get down!” Julian roared, instincts honed by a lifetime of violence taking over in a microsecond.
He lunged forward, tackling Clara and sweeping the little boy into his arms just as a volley of automatic gunfire tore through the wooden walls of the shop, riddling the display cases and splintering the shelves.
“They found us!” Clara screamed, shielding Leo beneath her body as Julian pushed them both behind the heavy oak counter.
“Who?” Julian demanded, his eyes flashing with lethal fury.
“A cleanup crew!” Clara sobbed, pressing her hands over Leo's ears. “Two weeks ago, some men came asking questions at the harbor. I thought I lost them, but—!”
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Julian cursed under his breath. Marcus’s contingency protocols. Even from a cell, the bastard had automated a failsafe to eliminate any loose ends if Julian ever tracked Clara down.
“Stay here. Do not move,” Julian commanded, drawing his sidearm from his shoulder holster with cold, practiced precision.
