Chapter 5 - The Rat in the Inner CircleBefore Chloe could slap the arrogant smirk off his face, the heavy double doors of the dining room flew open.
Dante burst in, panting, clutching a bloodied tablet in his hand.
"Boss. We have a breach," Dante gasped, his eyes darting nervously toward Chloe before locking onto Gabriel. "One of Rostova’s hit squads just bypassed the south perimeter gate. They didn't come in blindly—they had exact blueprints of the manor's ground-floor security grid."
Gabriel’s expression didn't panic; it hardened into absolute, lethal frost. "Who had access to those blueprints?"
Dante swallowed hard. "Only the senior capos... and Marcus."
Marcus Vance—not the lawyer from New York, but Gabriel’s head of estate security—had been with the Costa organization for a decade.
"Find him," Gabriel ordered quietly.
Suddenly, the overhead lights flickered and died, plunging the massive dining room into pitch blackness, save for the pale moonlight filtering through the French doors.
Crack!
A silenced gunshot shattered the glass door behind them, the bullet embedding itself deep into the mahogany table inches from Chloe’s hip.
"Down!" Gabriel roared, grabbing Chloe by the waist and tackling her beneath the heavy dining table as a volley of automatic gunfire chewed through the room’s plaster walls.
"Your security is fantastic!" Chloe yelled sarcastically against his chest as glass rained down around them.
"Quiet," Gabriel commanded, his hand sliding inside his jacket to draw his Beretta. "Dante, secure the perimeter! Flush out whoever let them in!"
May you like
Through the smoke and flying debris, a dark figure stepped casually through the shattered French doors, holding a suppressed carbine. It was Marcus Vance, his face twisted into a sneer of bitter betrayal.
"Sorry, boss," Marcus shouted over the ringing gunfire. "Rostova pays better, and frankly, I'm tired of working for a man who gets soft over a stray pit bull!"
