Chapter 5 - Lockdown at the Estate
Above the subterranean vault, the main halls of the Moretti estate echoed with the muffled crack of suppressed gunfire and the heavy thud of breaching boots.
Marcus Vance—a ruthless fifty-year-old syndicate leader clad in a dark tactical coat—strode through the shattered glass doors of the grand foyer, flanked by six heavily armed mercenaries. Vance’s face was scarred, his eyes filled with a desperate, manic greed.
"Find the girl!" Vance barked to his men, his voice harsh against the marble walls. "Old man Vincent left the master ledger with that kitchen worker! Search every room!"
Before his men could advance toward the grand staircase, a voice like cold iron echoed down from the second-floor landing.
"You're standing in my house, Vance."
Vance turned his head, looking up.
Damian stood at the top of the marble stairs, holding his sidearm with effortless, terrifying precision. His fitted black dress shirt was stark against the white stone walls, his dark eyes deadpan and completely devoid of fear.
"Damian," Vance sneered, adjusting his leather gloves. "I was hoping you'd be reasonable. Your father spent fifteen years hiding from me in a moldy attic. But he couldn't take his secret to the grave. The ledger he stole from our joint accounts is on that flash drive the girl brought you."
"My father didn't steal anything from you, Vance," Damian replied coldly, taking a slow step down the stairs. "He built the accounts you've been leeching off for a decade."
"Hand over the drive and the girl, Damian," Vance demanded, his mercenaries raising their assault rifles toward the landing. "Or I burn this estate to the ground with you inside it."
Damian offered a dark, razor-sharp smile. "You always were bad at math, Marcus."
Before Vance could react, Damian pressed a small remote button in his palm.
Instantly, heavy steel blast shutters slammed down over every door and window in the foyer with a deafening metallic roar! The grand hall was plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the flashing red emergency beacons along the baseboards.
From the shadows of the upper balconies, eight of Damian's elite house guards opened fire with non-lethal flash-bang charges and tactical suppressors!
Chaos erupted in the foyer. Flash-bangs detonated in blinding bursts of white light, disorienting Vance's mercenaries. Damian moved down the staircase like a dark shadow, disarming the lead mercenary with a swift, crushing blow, using the man's tactical frame as cover while clearing the foyer with lethal efficiency.
Within two minutes, five of Vance's mercenaries were disarmed and pinned to the marble floor by Moretti enforcers.
Vance backed against the locked steel front shutters, bleeding from a graze on his cheek, his pistol lost in the darkness.
May you like
Damian walked up to him, stopping two inches away. He reached out, grabbed Vance by his tactical collar, and lifted the older mobster off his feet, pinning him against the steel shutter.
"My father spent fifteen years watching over this family from the shadows," Damian whispered, his deep voice thick with absolute authority. "And today, you walked right into his trap."
