Chapter 5 - The Siege
The gunfire didn't come from the federal agents outside; it came from the heavy tactical vehicles roaring up the unpaved driveway, their high-beam headlights blinding everyone in the room.
“Moretti!” Vince roared, tackling me to the floor as a burst of automatic submachine gun fire shredded the leather armchair where Arthur Vance had been sitting just seconds before.
The old man wasn't as lucky. A stray round caught him square in the chest, throwing him backward against the cold hearth as life drained from his eyes in a matter of seconds.
“Federal backup? No, that’s not federal!” Yuri yelled over the deafening roar of automatic weapons, dragging himself behind a marble pillar with a bloody shoulder. “It’s Salvatore Moretti’s cleanup crew! They tracked our convoy!”
Grace dropped to one knee, rolling behind a heavy oak table as a hail of lead chewed through the drywall. She looked across the room at me, her federal composure completely shattered, replaced by raw, primal survival instinct.
“Your own men sold us out!” Grace shouted over the din. “Salvatore knows you’re here!”
“Vince!” I yelled, pulling my backup Smith & Wesson from my shoulder holster while bullets chipped marble dust into my eyes. “Who knew about this location?”
“Only the inner circle, Boss!” Vince yelled back, firing blindly through the broken window frame. “Only Frank!”
Frank. My second-in-command. The man I had trusted with my life since the dock wars of 2012.
Moretti had bought him. And tonight, Moretti intended to wipe out the Romano bloodline in one fell swoop—me, my tech team, and federal witnesses all buried in the same burning estate.
“Grace!” I yelled across the smoke-filled room. “Your federal extraction team—are they coming or are we on our own?”
“Our communications are jammed!” she yelled back, holding up a dead tactical radio. “Moretti’s signal blockers are cutting off all cellular and radio frequencies within a two-mile radius!”
We were cut off. Surrounded by a rival syndicate execution squad with orders to leave no survivors, inside a decaying trap built by a dead federal prosecutor.
“If we stay here, we burn!” I shouted, crawling across the floor toward Grace’s position behind the oak table.
“And if we run, we’re targets in an open field!” she fired back, reloading her service pistol with practiced, lightning-fast efficiency.
“Not if we split them up,” I said, looking into her eyes and seeing something I never expected to find in an enemy operative: absolute, unyielding grit. “You have a secondary vehicle parked in the back woods. An unmarked federal Ford?”
Grace blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Because I own this county, Grace. Nothing moves without my dock cops seeing it. You take the keys from your pocket, you get out through the storm cellar, and you go back to my mansion.”
“Back to your mansion?” she scoffed. “Moretti’s hit squad is going to sweep every property tied to your name tonight! Your mansion is their primary target!”
“Not if they think I’m still here,” I said, ripping the expensive silk tie from my collar and wiping soot across my face. “Vince! Yuri! Lay down suppressing fire toward the eastern windows. Make enough noise to wake up the whole damn Atlantic coast.”
“Boss, what are you doing?” Vince yelled.
“I’m going to draw them out,” I said, checking the magazine of my sidearm. Then I looked at Grace. “You protect my girls. If I don’t make it back by sunrise, you take them across the Canadian border. I have accounts in Montreal under clean names. Use them.”
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Grace stared at me, the hard, prosecutorial armor completely melting away, leaving behind the woman who had spent two months singing “You Are My Sunshine” to three terrified little girls in a marble kitchen.
“Don't die, Dominic,” she whispered over the gunfire. “My daughters—your daughters—won't survive another funeral.”
