Chapter 7 - The Ambush on Main StreetIsabella gasped, her maternal instincts instantly overriding everything else. “Eli!”
She tried to push past Damian, but Damian was already moving.
With the explosive speed of a trained predator, Damian caught her by the arm, pulling her back inside the doorway just as a black, unmarked sedan tore around the corner of Caldwell Street at eighty miles an hour, its tires screaming against the asphalt.
“Get down!” Damian roared.
He threw Isabella behind him into the hallway just as a volley of automatic gunfire erupted from the passing sedan.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Shreds of white siding exploded around the front porch. Wood splinters rained down like confetti. Bullets shattered the living room window, chewing through the drywall and embedding themselves in the family portraits hanging on the wall.
“Eli!” Isabella screamed, panic tearing her throat raw. “My son went out the back! He’s walking toward Mrs. Gable’s house!”
Damian’s face went completely blank—the mask of the Chicago mob boss snapping back into place with terrifying efficiency. He didn't panic. He calculated.
“Victor,” Damian muttered to himself, his eyes flashing with lethal fury.
When Damian had left the office and stripped Victor of his authority, the underboss knew his life was forfeit. With the truth about the DNA test out, Victor had nothing left to lose. Eliminating Damian—and wiping out any living heirs to the Moretti bloodline—was his only ticket to survival and control of the syndicate.
“Stay in the house,” Damian ordered, pulling a heavy, matte-black Glock 19 from a concealed shoulder holster beneath his coat.
“Like hell I’m staying here!” Isabella grabbed a heavy iron fireplace poker from the umbrella stand by the door. “That’s my son out there!”
Damian looked at her—at the fierce, untamed courage burning in her dark eyes—and for the first time, a grim, terrifyingly proud smile touched the corner of his mouth.
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“Stay behind me,” he said.
They burst out the back door just as the black sedan skidded to a halt in the alley behind Caldwell Street. Two armed men in black ski masks stepped out of the vehicle, weapons raised, heading straight down the path toward the neighboring yard where Eli had run.
