Chapter 6 - The Siege of MidtownThe rain lashed against the reinforced ballistic glass of the Rossi townhouse as the first explosion rocked the foundation.
BOOM.
The floor beneath Clara’s bed vibrated violently, sending a vase of white lilies crashing to the hardwood floor. Outside in the hallway, the sound of automatic gunfire erupted like popcorn in a frying pan—sharp, rapid, and terrifyingly close.
Clara ripped the IV lines out of her arm with a gasp of pain, ignoring the hot agony tearing through her ribs. She couldn't just sit there and wait to be executed by whoever was blowing up the building.
She swung her legs over the side of the mattress, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. Her body screamed in protest, every muscle aching as if she had been run over by a truck.
Reaching for her discarded clothes draped over a chair, she spotted something glinting on the bedside table.
Her father’s silver pendant. The compass gear necklace she had worn every day of her life.
She snatched it up, slipping it around her neck just as the bedroom door kicked open with a splintering crash.
Clara froze.
Standing in the doorway was a heavily armed man wearing a black tactical balaclava, holding a suppressed MP5 submachine gun. He scanned the room, his eyes landing instantly on Clara standing beside the bed.
"Target sighted," the gunman growled into his shoulder radio. "She’s awake."
He raised the barrel of the gun directly at her chest.
Clara closed her eyes, a wave of profound sorrow washing over her. She had survived seven bullets in a ballroom, only to die in a luxury bedroom in Manhattan.
Bang.
The sound of gunfire echoed inside the room, but the bullet didn't hit her.
Instead, the tactical assassin’s eyes widened in sheer shock. A red blossom bloomed on the center of his forehead, and he crashed backward onto the floor like a felled oak tree.
Standing behind him in the doorway, smoke still drifting from the barrel of his Sig Sauer, was Dominic Rossi.
His shirt was torn at the shoulder, a shallow crimson graze bleeding down his collarbone, and his expression was that of a man possessed by pure, unyielding wrath.
He didn't yell. He didn't rush. He stepped over the dead body, closed the distance between them in two strides, and grabbed Clara by the shoulders.
"I told you to stay in bed," Dominic growled, though his hands were surprisingly gentle as he checked her for new injuries.
"Your men are dying out there!" Clara hissed, her adrenaline surging past the pain. "Who are these people?! What do they want with me?!"
"They want what’s hanging around your neck," Dominic said, his dark eyes dropping briefly to the silver pendant resting against her collarbone.
Clara’s hands flew to the necklace. "My father's pendant? This is just cheap tin!"
"It’s an encrypted microchip containing the financial proof that will put Victor Costa in a federal penitentiary for the rest of his natural life," Dominic corrected grimly. "Your father didn't die of a heart attack, Clara. Costa murdered him for that data. And now Costa thinks killing you is the only way to get it back."
May you like
The room spun around Clara. All the lies, all the struggling, all the late shifts at the diner—it had all been built on a foundation of blood and stolen secrets.
Before she could process the revelation, a second explosion tore through the lower level, and the building plunged into sudden, pitch-black darkness as the emergency generators failed.
