Chapter 17 - Protecting the Heir
The battle raging on the ground floor of the manor was a chaotic symphony of shattering glass, automatic gunfire, and the guttural shouts of wounded men. Lorenzo and Dante had successfully trapped the main assault squad in the grand foyer, cross-firing from the elevated mezzanine galleries with deadly precision.
However, tactical warfare against the New York Commission was never a single-front engagement.
While Lorenzo reloaded his rifle behind a marble pillar on the second floor, Dante’s tactical comms crackled with static and the frantic voice of one of their perimeter sentries stationed near the eastern residential wing.
“Boss! We have a secondary team! Four operatives bypassed the harbor engagement—they scaled the east ivy wall using grappling hooks! They’re on the third-floor roof terrace directly above the master bedroom!”
Lorenzo’s blood turned to ice. The third-floor roof terrace was less than fifteen feet away from the exterior ventilation shaft that supplied air to the biometric panic room where Elena and Leo were hidden. If the strike team had architectural blueprints of the estate—likely sold to them by Victor Thorne months prior—they knew exactly where the vault's structural vulnerabilities were located.
“Dante! Hold the foyer!” Lorenzo roared, dropping his empty assault rifle and drawing his customized Colt .45 along with a backup Glock from his tactical belt. “I’m taking the east stairwell to the third floor!”
“You can’t take four heavy operatives alone in a narrow corridor, boss!” Dante shouted back, firing a suppressive burst into the smoke below. “Wait for the backup squad from the gatehouse!”
“There is no time!” Lorenzo shouted over his shoulder as he sprinted down the hallway toward the private residential wing. “They’re going for the ventilation intake!”
Lorenzo took the stairs three at a time, his heart hammering against his ribs—not with fear for his own life, but with the terrifying realization that the child who had slept on his chest under the weeping willow was about to be hunted like an animal in his own house.
He kicked open the heavy double doors leading into the third-floor master suite just as the glass skylight above the bed shattered inward.
Two black-clad operatives dropped from the ceiling ropes onto the Persian rug, their suppressed submachine guns raised, their tactical flashlights slicing through the darkness of the bedroom.
Lorenzo didn't hesitate. He didn't seek cover. He moved with the terrifying, predatory speed of a man who had spent twenty-five years surviving in the dark.
He fired twice while diving across the bed. The first hollow-point round took the lead operative directly through the visor of his tactical helmet, dropping him instantly to the floor. The second round caught the trailing operative in the throat before he could swing his submachine gun toward the doorway.
Before Lorenzo could hit the carpet to stabilize his stance, the remaining two operatives breached through the balcony French doors from the exterior terrace, firing a blind hail of automatic bullets into the room.
Wood splintered from the bedposts; feathers from the shredded mattress pillows filled the air like snow. Lorenzo felt a sharp, burning agony slice across his left bicep as a bullet grazed his arm, tearing through his tactical sleeve and spilling warm blood down his wrist.
He ignored the pain entirely. He rolled behind the solid oak dresser, cocked both pistols, and listened to the heavy, tactical footsteps approaching the hidden bookshelf covering the panic room vault.
“Set the thermal breaching charge on the bookcase!” one of the operatives barked in a thick Eastern accent. “We have three minutes before the local authorities respond to the harbor explosion! Get the kid out now!”
Lorenzo stepped out from behind the dresser, both arms extended, his amber eyes locked onto the two men standing in front of his family’s sanctuary.
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“Nobody touches that door,” Lorenzo whispered, his voice cold as a graveyard.
Before the operatives could raise their weapons, Lorenzo squeezed both triggers simultaneously.
