Chapter 16 - shattered glass in the rain
The shrill wail of the fire alarms cut through the penthouse like a siren of war. Strobe lights pulsed red against the polished walls, casting grotesque, dancing shadows across the mahogany furniture.
"Leo!" Savannah screamed, not waiting for Dominic or Marcus. She ripped her hands away from Dominic’s chest and bolted toward the hallway.
The scent of acrid smoke was already filtering up through the private elevator shaft—not thick enough to choke, but sharp, chemical, and terrifying. The building's automated safety protocol had slammed the heavy fire doors shut across the south wing, locking down the express elevators and plunging the secondary corridors into emergency battery power.
Dominic was right behind her, his long strides covering the distance in seconds. He caught Savannah by the arm just as she reached the nursery door.
"Stay behind me!" he commanded, his voice tearing through the sound of the alarms.
He kicked the door open.
Inside, Mrs. Gable was huddled in the corner near the window, shielding Leo with her entire body. The boy was white as paper, his hands clamped over his ears, trembling so violently his teeth were chattering. The sudden noise, the red flashing lights, the smell of smoke—it was a direct recreation of the night his mother had walked away from the burning wreckage of their town car two years ago.
"Savannah!" Leo shrieked. It wasn't a whisper. It was a raw, desperate scream of sheer terror.
Savannah broke free of Dominic’s grip, dropping to her knees on the rug and pulling both Leo and the trembling elderly housekeeper into her arms.
"I’m here! I’m right here, baby!" Savannah shouted over the siren. "You're safe! It’s just an alarm!"
Dominic pulled out his tactical radio, dialing into the security frequency. "Report! What is the status of the garage?"
"Fire suppression deployed in the loading dock, Mr. Vance!" the head of security barked back over the radio through static. "The van was unoccupied. It was an automated decoy rig loaded with smoke canisters and low-grade road flares. Nobody was hurt, but the blast triggered the city-wide high-rise protocol. FDNY is three minutes out. It wasn't an assassination attempt, sir... it was a diversion!"
"A diversion for what?" Dominic demanded, his eyes scanning the room.
Before the guard could answer, the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the adjacent solarium shattered with an explosive, deafening roar.
High-velocity concussive rounds didn't penetrate the heavy hurricane-grade glass entirely, but three rapid-fire impacts spiderwebbed the thick pane into a blinding maze of frosted cracks. The structural integrity gave way under the third shot, raining thousands of tiny crystalline cubes across the hardwood floor.
Through the broken opening, rain swept in on a sudden gust of wind, bringing the freezing Manhattan drizzle directly into the penthouse.
Dominic didn't hesitate. He launched himself across the room, tackling Savannah, Leo, and Mrs. Gable down behind the solid cherrywood desk that anchored the nursery corner.
"Get down!" Dominic roared, covering Savannah and Leo with his own body, his back exposed to the shattered window.
A high-tech surveillance drone—sleek, matte-black, roughly the size of an eagle—drifted through the gaping hole in the glass, humming with an electric whine. Mounted beneath its carbon-fiber chassis was not a weapon, but a high-intensity parabolic lens and a directional microphone, pulsing with an encrypted cellular feed.
It hovered ten feet above the floor, its mechanical eye rotating until it locked onto Dominic shielding Savannah and the screaming child.
"Victoria," Dominic snarled, realizing the game in an instant.
It wasn't an assault to kill. It was a theatrical, fabricated crisis designed to generate horrific optics. A smoke bomb in the basement, an alarm, a staged breach, and a drone recording the child screaming in absolute terror while surrounded by armed chaos—all timed to hit the federal judge’s inbox before the morning hearing.
Savannah looked up from beneath Dominic’s chest. She saw the camera lens focusing on Leo’s tear-stained face, capturing every second of his agony to be used as legal ammunition to prove Dominic’s home was an active war zone.
A cold, burning rage sparked inside Savannah that completely erased her fear.
She slipped out from beneath Dominic before he could stop her.
"Savannah, no!" Dominic yelled, reaching for her ankle.
She ignored him. She grabbed the heavy brass floor lamp beside the desk, ripped the power cord from the wall, and swung the solid metal base with every ounce of strength in her working-class arms.
The lamp struck the hovering drone with a sickening crunch of shattered carbon fiber and sparking lithium batteries. The drone wobbled wildly, its gyroscopes screaming, before Savannah brought the brass base down on it a second time, smashing it into the hardwood floor.
The drone collapsed in a heap of smoking wires, its camera lens crushed beneath her heel.
The room fell abruptly silent, save for the wailing siren down the hall and the rain pattering against the broken glass.
Savannah stood there, her chest heaving, the heavy brass lamp still clutched in her hands, her hair wet from the rain blowing through the shattered window. Her cardigan was torn at the shoulder, and a faint smear of black soot marked her cheek, but her eyes burned with the absolute ferocity of a mother defending her cub.
Dominic stared at her from the floor, his blue eyes wide, completely stunned.
Leo slowly lowered his hands from his ears. He looked at the smashed machine on the floor, then looked up at Savannah.
"Mama broke it," Leo whispered, his hazel eyes wide with awe.
A tiny, breathless laugh escaped Savannah’s lips despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She dropped the heavy lamp with a dull thud, turned around, and fell to her knees, pulling Leo tightly against her chest.
"Yeah, bug," Savannah whispered, her voice trembling now that the danger had passed. "Mama broke it."
Dominic rose slowly, stepping through the broken glass, his boots crunching over the shards. He reached down, wrapping his powerful arms around both of them, pulling them against his chest while the freezing rain blew across his back.
"Marcus!" Dominic shouted toward the hallway.
May you like
Marcus appeared in the doorway, his gun drawn, his face pale as he surveyed the shattered solarium. "I’m here, Dominic. FDNY is at the lobby."
"Call the district attorney," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a deadly, murderous whisper that made the cold rain feel warm by comparison. "Tell him Senator Sterling and Victoria Vance just orchestrated an act of domestic terrorism on private residential property. And tell him that tomorrow morning, I’m not just asking for full custody. I’m putting both of them behind bars."
