Chapter 6 - Breach at Midnight The alarms didn't sound with a loud wail; they flickered as a series of silent, pulsing red lights along the baseboards of the Vatello study. Dante was kneeling by the fireplace, handing Leo a warm cup of broth, when the lights caught his attention. His head snapped toward the security monitor on the oak desk.
Three thermal signatures were moving stealthily across the east courtyard, bypassing the motion sensors with military-grade precision.
"They're coming," Dante murmured, his hand dropping smoothly to the customized Sig Sauer pistol resting in his desk drawer.
Leo didn't panic. He set the cup down, his dark eyes narrowing. "They're coming for me, aren't they?"
"They're coming for both of us," Dante said, standing up and shedding his suit jacket to reveal the heavy shoulder holster strapped across his chest. He looked down at the boy, seeing not a street rat, but the continuation of everything he had fought and bled to build. "Stay behind the oak desk. Do not move under any circumstances. If the door opens and it isn't me, you put a bullet through whatever steps through it. Do you understand?"
Dante handed the boy a small, snub-nosed .38 revolver he kept in the lower desk drawer—a weapon far too heavy for an eight-year-old, but Leo took it with both hands, his grip steady and unshakeable.
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Before Dante could reach the heavy study doors, the reinforced glass paneling of the hallway shattered in a storm of silenced gunfire. The first mercenary lunged through the doorway, his assault rifle raised—and Dante fired twice. The man dropped before he even hit the carpet.
The war for the Vatello empire had officially begun, and Dante Vatello was no longer just fighting for his throne; he was fighting for his blood.
