Chapter 4 - The Manor Above
Elena picked up an assault rifle from the fallen operative, racking the bolt with cold efficiency. "The manor is compromised. Your personal guards are either dead or turned."
Dante stood up, holding Lily tightly against his ribs. The little girl was silent, her fingers white-knuckled around her teddy bear. "Victor was guarding the foyer. He's been with me for fifteen years."
"Then Victor is dead," Elena said flatly. "Or he took twenty million to leave the back gate unlocked. Move. If they secure the stairs, we're trapped in a slaughterhouse."
Grace moved beside Elena without hesitation, her hands resting on the spare magazine pouches she had stripped from the dead intruder's vest. "Father, do not step on the third riser. The wood creaks."
Dante swallowed his pride and followed his nine-year-old daughter. The realization that his daughter was navigating the dark better than he could made a hollow pit in his stomach. They crept up the narrow stone steps, the smell of cordite and copper mingling with rain pouring from the shattered window.
At the top of the stairs, the door stood ajar. A line of pale light sliced through the darkness of the corridor.
Dante peered through the crack. The opulent hallway of his estate was wrecked. Paintings by Dutch masters were shredded by bullet holes, and the marble floor was slick with blood. Victor, his trusted lieutenant, lay sprawled against a mahogany credenza, his throat slit from ear to ear.
Standing over Victor's corpse was a man in an immaculate white suit, unbothered by the blood staining his leather oxfords. He held a delicate bone-handled cane, tapping it impatiently against the floor.
"Julian," Dante muttered under his breath, his hand tightening into a fist.
Elena leaned in, her whisper grazing Dante’s ear. "He isn't here for your territory, Dante. Look at his lapel."
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Pinned to the white lapel was an identical silver crest—the Ashen Covenant. Julian slowly turned toward the cellar door, as if he could hear Dante's very pulse.
"Come out, old friend," Julian's voice rang through the empty manor. "Let me see what Elena made of the girl."
