Chapter 8 - THE SMOKE AND THE BLADEThe concussive blast threw Dante and me across the narrow panic room. Dust, debris, and shrapnel filled the air, choking our lungs and blinding us with thick, gray smoke.
Coughing violently, I scrambled on my hands and knees through the pulverized drywall to check on Clara. She was conscious, coughing into the oxygen mask, her eyes wide with terror as she gripped my arm.
"Stay down!" Dante roared through the haze, rolling across the floor and raising his pistol toward the smoking ruin of the doorway.
Through the dissipating smoke, heavy tactical boots stepped into the room.
Two men in black tactical gear, their faces concealed behind reinforced ceramic helmets and night-vision goggles, swept into the bunker. Their assault rifles were leveled directly at Dante’s chest.
"Drop the weapon, Valente dog," a harsh, distorted voice crackled through a tactical comms unit. "End of the line."
Dante didn't drop his gun. His eyes locked onto the lead mercenary’s stance, calculating every fraction of an inch. But before either side could pull a trigger, a dark, heavy shadow lunged from the adjacent ventilation shaft overhead.
Thud!
Adrian Valente dropped out of the ceiling like a predatory cat, landing squarely on the back of the second mercenary. With brutal, calculated efficiency, Adrian drove the butt of his heavy revolver into the side of the man’s helmet, sending him crashing unconscious to the concrete floor.
The first mercenary spun around, his rifle tracking toward Adrian, but Dante was already moving. Two sharp cracks echoed through the cramped bunker. The mercenary dropped his weapon and crumpled instantly.
Silence descended upon the room, broken only by the hiss of leaking oxygen tanks and Clara’s shallow breathing.
Adrian stood up, his suit ruined, his knuckles bloodied, breathing heavily as he looked around the wrecked panic room. His dark eyes finally landed on me, then on Clara.
"You all right?" Adrian asked, his voice raw.
"We’re alive," I breathed, trembling from head to toe. "For now."
Adrian walked over to the fallen mercenary, knelt down, and pulled a heavy, encrypted black flash drive from the man’s tactical vest. He turned it over in his hand, a grim, humorless smile touching his lips.
"They didn't come here to kill me," Adrian said softly, holding up the drive. "They came to make sure this drive—the one Karen Mitchell stole from my private safe—never saw the light of day. Because on this drive is the name of the man who ordered the assassination of my wife five years ago... and tried to kill my daughter three days ago."
He turned his piercing gaze straight onto Dante.
May you like
No, not Dante.
Adrian looked past Dante, toward the smoking doorway where a fresh set of tactical boots was slowly stepping out of the shadows.
