Chapter 7 - The Ice King’s WrathThe dust hadn't even settled before the driver’s side door of the wrecked delivery truck was kicked completely off its hinges.
Dario Falcone emerged from the cloud of debris like a demon climbing out of hell. He was covered in glass shards and fresh blood, his eyes glowing with an unholy, lethal fury. He held two heavy automatic shotguns in his hands.
He didn't speak. He didn't warn them.
BOOM!
The first mercenary standing near the door was hurled backward through the wall by a massive blast of 12-gauge buckshot. Dario turned, racking the slide with a brutal clack-clack, and fired again, clearing the remaining guards in the hallway in a matter of three seconds.
The basement exploded into total violence.
Dario moved through the smoke with terrifying precision, a force of nature fueled by twenty years of grief, betrayal, and love for the only family he had left. Every step he took was accompanied by the rhythmic, deafening thunder of his weapons.
Within less than a minute, the ten mercenaries who had breached the basement were dead on the concrete floor.
Dario stepped over the bodies, dropping the empty shotguns onto the floor. He drew his personal revolver, walking slowly into the safe room where Victor stood frozen, holding Mia by the collar of her flower dress, his gold pistol pressed against her temple.
"One step closer, Dario, and I put a bullet in her brain!" Victor screamed, his voice cracking with genuine panic for the first time in his life. "I swear to God, I'll kill her!"
Dario stopped ten feet away.
His clothes were torn, his body bleeding, but his eyes were completely calm. The silence that fell over the room was heavier than the stone walls surrounding them.
"You took my sister, Victor," Dario said, his voice flat, devoid of any human emotion. "You took twenty years of my life. You made me live in a world where I thought everyone I loved was dead."
"She was weak!" Victor shouted, tightening his grip on Mia, who was kicking her legs frantically. "They were all weak! I built this city!"
"No," Dario said, taking one agonizingly slow step forward. "You built a cage. And you forgot who held the key."
Dario didn't raise his gun. Instead, he looked at Mia.
"Mia," Dario said softly. "Do you remember what your mother told you about the teddy bear?"
Mia’s eyes widened. She remembered.
Without warning, the five-year-old girl raised her arm and slammed the heavy, steel-weighted bottom of her antique teddy bear directly into Victor’s groin with all the strength in her tiny body.
Victor gasped in sudden, excruciating pain, his grip loosening for half a second.
That was all Dario needed.
Dario closed the distance like a striking cobra. He grabbed Victor’s gun arm, twisting it backward until the bone snapped with a sickening CRACK. Victor shrieked in agony, dropping the weapon as Dario kicked his legs out from under him, slamming the old man hard onto the cold stone floor.
Dario picked up Mia with one arm, wrapping her safely behind his back, while keeping his boot pressed firmly onto Victor’s throat.
Victor choked, his hands clawing uselessly at Dario’s heavy leather boot. "Please... Dario... mercy... we're family..."
Dario looked down at the man who had ruined his life, his sister's life, and almost destroyed this innocent child.
May you like
"Family protects family," Dario whispered. "And you are nothing to us."
BANG.
