Chapter 6 - SIEGE AT THE MANOR
Alarm sirens wailed through the mansion as smoke and glass filled the air.
Lorenzo reacted instantly, shielding my body with his own and throwing us both behind the heavy oak desk as automatic gunfire shattered the remaining window frames.
"Matteo!" Lorenzo roared into his wrist communicator. "Status!"
"Boss! They blew the front gates!" Matteo's voice screamed through heavy static and gunfire. "It's a full-scale assault! Falcone sent twenty mercenaries in tactical gear—they’re pushing through the courtyard!"
Dominic Falcone had realized he couldn't beat us in a financial war, so he had opted for total annihilation.
Lorenzo pulled a high-caliber handgun from a hidden drawer beneath the desk and handed a smaller, lightweight pistol to me. "Do you know how to use this?"
"My father made me take safety courses when the threats started," I said, my hands shaking, but my grip on the handle was firm. "I know how to shoot."
"Stay behind me, keep low, and aim for center mass if anyone comes through that door," Lorenzo ordered, his voice steady and calm despite the madness unfolding around us.
The heavy library doors were kicked open, and two armed mercenaries in black tactical gear burst into the room, their weapons raised.
Lorenzo fired three precise shots, dropping the first operative instantly. The second mercenary aimed his rifle at Lorenzo’s back while Lorenzo was reloading. Without thinking, pure instinct took over—I raised my pistol, aligned the sights, and fired twice.
The second mercenary collapsed to the floor, disarmed and neutralized.
Lorenzo turned, looking at me with a mixture of shock and fierce pride. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Miss Bennett."
"Just focus on keeping us alive!" I gasped, my heart hammering against my ribs.
We scrambled through a private reinforced exit behind the library, moving quickly through the subterranean service tunnels beneath the mansion. The sound of heavy gunfire echoed from the floors above as Lorenzo’s security team engaged the intruders.
"Where are we going?" I asked as we ran through the dim, concrete passageway.
"To the secondary vault," Lorenzo said. "It's a blast-proof safehouse built into the bedrock beneath the estate. Once the doors lock, not even a missile can penetrate it."
We reached a heavy steel blast door at the end of the tunnel. Lorenzo swiped his palm against the biometric scanner, and the heavy locking bolts began to disengage with a loud pneumatic hiss.
Suddenly, a voice echoed from the darkness of the tunnel behind us.
"Going somewhere, Moretti?"
May you like
We turned to see Dominic Falcone himself, flanked by his chief lieutenant, holding a detonator in his hand. Falcone was bleeding from a graze on his forehead, his face twisted into a maniacal sneer.
"You thought you were so clever with your ledgers and your legal threats," Falcone spat, stepping closer. "If I can't have the city's financial network, nobody can. I’ve rigged the entire upper floor of this mansion with C4 explosives. In two minutes, this whole place will become your tomb."
