Chapter 7 - Ash and Lead
The shockwave threw Elena flat against the marble floor, her ears ringing with a high-pitched, deafening whine. Smoke and particulate matter burned her eyes and throat. Through the haze, the tiny cries of the infant were the only sound anchoring her to reality.
Shadows flooded through the destroyed doorway. Men in tactical gear, laser sights painting the smoggy air with sharp green lines.
""Target confirmed!"" a voice barked in Spanish. ""Secure the infant! Neutralize the rest!""
Before the lead operative could raise his rifle, Luca lunged from the gloom like a phantom. He didn't fire; he moved with brutal, close-quarters efficiency, driving his combat knife upward beneath the man's ballistic vest. The operative gasped, collapsing into Luca's arms as Luca used the dying man's body as a human shield against a barrage of incoming fire.
Bullets chewed through wood, plaster, and flesh. Luca returned fire with his sidearm, four precise shots dropping two more men instantly in the doorway.
""Move!"" Dr. Aris screamed, dragging Elena by the collar of Luca's heavy coat toward a concealed door hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.
Elena crawled, clutching her crying son against her breast, feeling his frantic heartbeat hammering against her own. She reached the threshold of the hidden passage just as another flash grenade detonated in the corridor.
Luca retreated into the room, his black coat shredded, blood dripping freely from his left forearm. He slammed the heavy steel bookshelf-door shut, locking the three internal deadbolts with rapid, mechanical precision.
The immediate silence inside the reinforced passage was suffocating.
""They brought mercenary contractors,"" Luca panted, his breath ragged as he leaned back against the steel door. ""Ex-special forces. Hector emptied his war chest for this.""
""You're hit,"" Elena whispered, her voice trembling as she noticed the dark stain spreading down his left sleeve.
""It's a graze,"" he lied, pressing a strip of torn fabric against the wound.
Suddenly, a metallic tapping sound echoed from the other side of the heavy door. Not gunfire. A slow, deliberate sequence of knocks.
A voice filtered through the intercom speaker on the wall—cold, aristocratic, and utterly devoid of mercy.
May you like
""Luca, my boy,"" Hector’s voice rasped through the static. ""You always were too sentimental for this business. Did you really think you were the only one who had a key to this vault?""
From the darkness at the other end of the narrow escape tunnel, the heavy iron gears of an automated bulkhead began to grind shut.
