Chapter 4 - Blood in the Snow
Before I could answer, the bullet hit the kitchen window.
The glass shattered in a violent explosion of jagged shards, spraying across the marble island.
"Get down!" I roared, tackling Hannah to the floor just as a second high-caliber round slammed into the wall where her head had been a second earlier.
The intelligent house security system instantly locked down, dropping steel shutters over every window with a heavy, mechanical slam. Emergency red strobe lights flashed across the ceiling, casting eerie shadows over the kitchen floor.
"Safe room! Now!" I grabbed Hannah by the wrist, pulling her toward the hidden panel behind the pantry.
"The girls!" Hannah screamed, fighting against my grip. "Chloe and Claire are in the sunroom!"
"Martha has them!" I lied, knowing Martha was out in the detached staff quarters. My heart hammered against my ribs—not from fear, but from cold, calculated fury. Someone had breached the perimeter. My outer guards were silent, which meant they were either dead or compromised.
And there was only one man in New York who knew the exact layout of this estate: Salvatore Rossi, my chief rival and the snake I had spared three years ago.
I shoved Hannah into the reinforced steel panic room tucked behind the pantry shelves. "Stay inside. Do not open this door for anyone except me. If you hear shooting, lock it from the inside."
"Victor, wait!" she grabbed my sleeve, her eyes wide with genuine panic—not for herself, but for me. "There's a sniper team outside the north ridge. They're using thermal optics. They know every blind spot in your cameras!"
"I built those blind spots, Hannah," I said, a lethal smile touching the corners of my mouth. "And I know how to exploit them."
I pulled a customized Smith & Wesson .45 from the hidden magnetic holster beneath the island counter, flicked off the safety, and slipped out through the service corridor into the freezing winter night.
The snow was falling heavily, turning the manicured lawns of my estate into a pale, ghostly canvas. Footprints—heavy combat boots—led toward the glass conservatory where the twins had been playing earlier.
My blood ran cold. The twins.
I moved like a ghost through the shadows of the pine trees, silent and deadly. Three men in tactical gear were working the lock on the conservatory sliding door. They were pros—ex-military contractors, judging by their gear discipline.
"Alpha team, breaching in three... two..." the leader whispered into his comms.
He never reached one.
I stepped out from behind the weeping willow, raising my piece, and put two rounds cleanly through his chest before he could turn around. The other two spun around, rifles raised, but I was already sliding through the snow behind a stone fountain.
"Frag out!" one shouted.
The grenade detonated against the fountain, showering me with frozen marble and sleet. My ears rang with a deafening whine, but I ignored the pain, rolling out from the smoke and delivering a double-tap through the chest of the second merc.
The third man—a hulking brute with a jagged scar across his jaw—dove behind a snowbank, his assault rifle spitting lead in my direction.
"Vance! Rossi sends his regards!" he roared over the gunfire.
"Tell Salvatore he's buying a very expensive coffin," I shouted back, calculating his ammo reload cycle. One, two, three, four... now.
I lunged out of cover, firing once. The bullet caught the mercenary square in the shoulder, spinning him into the snow. I stood over him, pressing the cold barrel of my pistol directly between his eyes.
"Who gave Rossi my security clearance?" I demanded, my voice dangerously calm against the howling wind.
The man spat blood onto the white snow, laughing wheezily. "You... you think Rossi is running this show? Look at your phone, Vance. Check your empire."
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My phone vibrated violently in my coat pocket. I kept the gun trained on his forehead while I pulled it out with my left hand.
A single text message flashed on the screen from Marcus's encrypted line: Boss. The docks, the banks, the federal indictments... everything is gone. We’ve been set up from the inside.
