Chapter 9 - THE COUNTDOWNThe digital numbers on the small, modified explosive device glowing on the elevator floor ticked downward in absolute silence.
00:48... 00:47... 00:46...
"Get back!" Dante roared, grabbing Elena by the waist and physically hauling her behind the thick, ballistic-grade marble pillar of the command center.
"Dante—Sophia's room is down the hall!" Elena screamed, panic seizing her throat.
"Vance!" Dante shouted into his communicator, his voice echoing like thunder through the penthouse. "Evacuate the east suite immediately! Code Red! Get Sophia to the armored sub-level vault right now!"
"Boss, the east suite elevators are locked!" Vance’s voice shouted back, punctuated by the sound of muffled gunfire and shouting over the comms. "We’ve been ambushed from the interior maintenance shafts! The whole floor is compromised!"
Dante’s face went completely bloodless. For the first time since Elena had known him, absolute, primal terror flashed across the crime boss's eyes. Someone had breached the inner sanctum of the Moretti citadel—not from the outside, but from within his own trusted inner circle.
"Stay here," Dante ordered Elena, pulling his weapon.
"No! I'm not hiding while Sophia is in danger!" Elena grabbed a heavy, tactical flashlight from the emergency station, her jaw set with fierce determination. "Whoever placed that bomb in the elevator used the master Moretti biometric override code. That means someone on your executive board—someone close to you—let them in!"
Dante stared at her for a fraction of a second, recognizing the unbreakable steel in her eyes. There was no time to argue.
"Follow my lead. Stay behind me," Dante growled, sweeping out of the command center with his submachine gun raised.
They sprinted down the corridor toward the east suite. The air grew thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder and smoke. As they rounded the corner, they found Vance pinned down behind a marble partition, firing short, controlled bursts toward the maintenance corridor.
Two of Dante’s elite guards were down, unconscious or worse.
"Boss! They’ve got the child!" Vance yelled over the gunfire. "They took her through the roof access hatch!"
Dante didn't hesitate. He vaulted over the partition, spraying suppressive fire toward the fleeing figures climbing the steel ladder toward the helipad.
"Elena, stay with Vance!" Dante ordered as he lunged up the ladder after them.
"I'm not letting her go!" Elena yelled back, grabbing a discarded sidearm from one of the fallen guards and scrambling up the ladder right behind Dante into the freezing night wind of the Manhattan roof.
The helipad was bathed in the harsh red glow of the rooftop warning lights. In the center of the tarmac sat a heavily armed private chopper with its rotor blades spinning wildly, kicking up a hurricane of wind and debris.
Two masked operatives were dragging a kicking, screaming Sophia toward the open cabin door.
And standing inside the cabin door, holding a tablet computer with a smug, victorious smile, was a man Dante trusted more than anyone else in the world.
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It was Vance’s second-in-command—Marcus.
"Step back, Dante!" Marcus shouted over the roar of the helicopter blades, holding a detonator in his hand. "One more step and the entire eighty-floor tower goes up in flames!"
