Chapter 5 - THE SIEGE OF MORETTIBy 6:00 AM, the storm outside had turned into a howling gale, rattling the reinforced glass of the Cole estate's command center.
The room looked like a war room—digital monitors flashing satellite feeds, encrypted radio chatter squawking in the background, and half a dozen syndicate lieutenants standing around a massive mahogany table covered in blueprints.
Adrien stood at the head of the table, leaning his weight on his knuckles. Claire sat in a leather armchair in the corner, a cup of black coffee in her hands, while Titan lay across her feet like a living barricade. Leo was busy examining a high-tech security panel on the wall with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
"Moretti’s men didn't wait for foreclosure court," Marcus announced, slamming a tablet down onto the table. "They just hit Second Chance Haven forty minutes ago. Burned the front office to the ground."
Claire went rigid. Her coffee cup sloshed over the rim, staining her faded green hoodie. "My records. The adoption files... the medical supplies for the puppies..."
"Gone," Marcus said grimly. "Moretti wanted to send a message. He thinks you're hiding something of mine—or rather, that I'm using your shelter as a front for our secondary arms shipments."
"Your arms shipments?" Claire stood up so fast her chair scraped loudly against the hardwood. "I run an animal shelter! We scrape by selling homemade dog biscuits and begging local bakeries for expired chicken!"
"Moretti doesn't care what you run," Adrien said, his voice cutting through the rising tension like a razor. He straightened up, his face carved from absolute stone. "He knows that if I took an interest in your shelter—if my dog chose you—then to the underworld, you belong to my sphere of influence. In our world, that makes you a target."
"I never asked to be in your world!" Claire shouted, her voice ringing with raw fury. "You walked into my sanctuary with six armed thugs and turned my life upside down!"
"And now my world is trying to burn yours to ash," Adrien replied, stepping toward her with terrifying calm. He stopped inches away, looking down into her blazing eyes. "You can run back to the ruins of your shelter and wait for Moretti’s next hit squad, or you can stay here behind twenty feet of reinforced concrete and let me finish what I started."
Before Claire could answer, the security monitors on the wall flared red.
The main gate camera showed a convoy of three unmarked black vans ramming straight through the steel perimeter fence, their headlights slicing through the rain as men in tactical gear poured out, weapons raised.
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Marcus’s radio squawked frantically: “Breach! Breach at the west perimeter! They’ve got explosives—!”
The radio cut out with a burst of static.
