Chapter 13 - Whispers in the Glass
"Lock down the sub-level safe room," Damien commanded, stepping swiftly toward the nursery door. "Eva stays sealed inside with Lily. No one enters or leaves until I give the verbal code."
"Understood," Marco replied, drawing his own weapon and signaling the tactical unit stationed in the hallway.
The mansion’s exterior lights suddenly died, plunging the vast estate into velvet blackness as the compound's primary transformer was severed. In the next instant, emergency crimson runner-lights flickered to life along the baseboards, casting ominous shadows against the oil paintings.
From the northern wing, the sound of shattered glass echoed down the long gallery.
Damien moved with ghost-like precision. He knew every turn, every hidden alcove, and every creaking floorboard of his ancestral home. Slipping through the double doors of the portrait gallery, he caught the faint green gleam of night-vision optics twenty yards ahead.
Three operatives in matte-black combat gear moved in a sweeping formation, their suppressed submachine guns raised, clearing corners with surgical efficiency. These were not the common street thugs Selene Hart had hired; these were shadow mercenaries trained in state-level black operations.
Damien didn't wait for them to acquire a target.
He stepped from behind a marble pillar, firing two suppressed rounds in a fraction of a second. The lead operator collapsed instantly. Before the other two could pivot, Damien closed the distance with terrifying speed, sweeping the second man's legs from beneath him and driving the heel of his boot into his throat.
The third mercenary swung his rifle toward Damien’s chest, but Marco appeared from the adjacent vestibule, firing a single round directly through the operative's shoulder.
The man crashed into an antique credenza, his weapon clattering across the marble floor.
Damien was on him in a heartbeat. He pinned the mercenary against the wall by his throat, the muzzle of Damien’s Beretta pressed firmly against the center of his forehead.
"Who authorized the hit?" Damien asked in a voice so devoid of emotion it was terrifying.
The operative gasped for air beneath Damien’s vice-like grip, blood trickling down his tactical vest. A grotesque, mocking smile spread across his bloodied lips.
"The... Council remembers," the man wheezed, his eyes rolling back. "The Black Sun... will eclipse your bloodline, Moretti. She... she belongs to them..."
Before Damien could demand clarification, the operative’s jaw clenched with a sickening crunch. A tiny glass capsule hidden behind his molars shattered. Within three seconds, dark purple foam bubbled from his lips, and his body went limp in Damien's grasp.
Damien released him, letting the corpse drop to the marble floor.
"Cyanide derivative," Marco said, kneeling beside the dead man to check his wrist. "Same custom delivery system as the Swiss syndicate. Look at his collar, Boss."
Marco peeled back the operative’s tactical collar. Tattooed into the flesh of his collarbone was an intricate mark: a black sun surrounded by five interlocking rings.
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"They didn't come to assassinate me," Damien realized, his blood running cold. He remembered the mercenary's dying words: *She belongs to them.*
"They came for Lily."
