Chapter 8 - The Price of BloodDominic sprinted across the gravel courtyard like a madman, ignoring the cold autumn wind whipping his hair, his boots pounding the earth until his lungs burned.
The guest cottage was dark, its windows shattered by a breaching charge.
He kicked the wooden front door off its hinges, sliding across the hardwood floor with his rifle raised.
“Vance!” Dominic shouted.
No answer.
He cleared the living room, the kitchenette, and burst into the back bedroom.
There, tied to a wooden chair, was the head nurse, gagged and unconscious.
And standing near the open French doors leading out to the cliffside overlooking the river was a tall, scarred mercenary holding a terrified, crying six-year-old girl by the arm with a knife pressed gently against her throat.
“Drop the rifle, Dominic!” the mercenary snarled, his eyes wide with desperate adrenaline. “Drop it, or the kid gets a Glasgow smile right now!”
Dominic stopped dead in his tracks.
The weapon in his hands felt impossibly heavy. The cold, calculating mafia boss vanished in an instant, replaced entirely by a terrified father looking at his daughter’s tear-stained face.
“Let her go,” Dominic said, his voice shaking with a rage so deep it threatened to tear him apart. “She’s six years old. She has nothing to do with this war.”
“She’s your blood,” the mercenary sneered, pressing the blade a fraction closer to Lily’s soft skin, drawing a tiny bead of crimson blood.
Lily sobbed, her small voice breaking Dominic’s heart. “Daddy... make him stop. It hurts.”
Daddy.
It was the first time she had ever called him that.
And it gave Dominic all the clarity he needed.
“I’m right here, princess,” Dominic whispered, his eyes locking onto the mercenary’s pupils. “Look at me. Just look at me.”
With blinding, terrifying speed, Dominic didn't drop his rifle—he dropped into a tactical slide, drawing a secondary Glock from his ankle holster with his left hand while firing a single, perfect, micro-second calculation round through the dark room.
Thwack.
The bullet caught the mercenary squarely between the eyes.
The man collapsed instantly, his grip on the knife loosening as he fell backward out the open French doors and plummeted down the cliffside toward the river below.
Dominic scrambled across the floor, frantically cutting the ropes binding Lily and sweeping her up into his arms.
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He buried his face in her blond curls, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe, his entire body trembling violently.
“I’ve got you,” Dominic choked out, tears streaming unheeded down his face. “I’ve got you, baby. Nobody will ever hurt you again.”
