Chapter 13 - The gate of iron and ash
The heavy iron gates of the Greenwich estate gave way with a deafening screech as the lead SUV’s steel bumper smashed through them at fifty miles per hour. Metal twisted, hinges snapped, and the convoy skidded onto the manicured gravel driveway, throwing up stones and mud.
Before the tires even stopped spinning, Lorenzo kicked his door open.
Muzzle flashes illuminated the downpour like strobes of lightning. A Moretti sentry on the wrap-around porch raised an assault rifle, but Marcus was already out of the passenger side. Three suppressed rounds whistled through the storm, and the guard collapsed forward, tumbling over the wooden railing into the rhododendron bushes.
"Stay down!" Lorenzo barked back at Elena as he surged forward into the dark, his weapon raised.
Elena didn't stay down. The moment Lorenzo’s back cleared the doorway, she pulled her hood tight, gripped the baby blanket against her chest, and stepped out into the freezing deluge.
The air smelled of ozone, burnt gunpowder, and wet pine. Another burst of automatic fire erupted from the upper balcony, chipping chunks of brick just inches above Lorenzo’s head. Lorenzo didn't flinch; he dropped to one knee, returned fire with calculated precision, and the silhouette on the balcony vanished backward through a shattered French door.
Marcus kicked the front door off its latch, and Lorenzo charged inside.
Elena ran up the porch steps, her sneakers sliding on the wet blood pooling near the entrance. She slipped through the shattered foyer just as another guard lunged from the shadow of the dining room with a combat knife.
"Behind you!" Elena screamed.
Lorenzo spun with terrifying agility. He caught the attacker’s wrist mid-strike, twisted it until the bone audibly snapped, and drove the butt of his heavy pistol directly into the man’s temple. The guard crumpled to the floor, lifeless.
Lorenzo turned, breathing hard, his hair plastered to his forehead with rain and sweat. He saw Elena standing in the foyer, shivering, her eyes wide with terror but entirely unbroken.
"I told you to wait in the car," he growled, though there was no real venom in his tone.
May you like
Then, from somewhere high above the sweeping spiral staircase, through the heavy silence of the neutralized house, came a faint, thin sound.
A baby’s cry.
