Chapter 24 - The Hunt in the Pines
The room was turning into a slaughterhouse. Dante’s remaining three men returned fire through the shattered window, their submachine guns barking in rhythmic, controlled bursts. Outside in the freezing rain, muzzle flashes strobed against the dark pine forest surrounding the sanatorium.
"Who are they?" Clara shouted, pressing her back against the desk, her ears ringing from the concussive blasts.
"Black water mercenaries. Hired by Don Moretti," Dante snarled, reloading his right pistol with practiced, terrifying speed. "Moretti knew Lorenzo was failing, so he set up a contingency. If he eliminates your father and me tonight, he takes over the entire Eastern seaboard by sunrise."
Dante vaulted over the desk, ignoring the bullets chipping the floor inches from his boots. He grabbed Julian by the collar of his hospital gown, heaving the gaunt man out of the shattered bed with brute strength.
"He can't walk!" Clara yelled, rushing to assist, wrapping her father's arm around her shoulder.
"Then he’ll drag his ass," Dante spat, though he deliberately shifted Julian's dead weight onto his own broad shoulder, shielding both Clara and her father with his massive frame. "Rear fire escape! Move!"
They burst out of Room 402 into the corridor just as a flashbang detonated in the room behind them, blowing the heavy oak door off its hinges. The hallway filled with thick, blinding smoke.
Footsteps pounded on the stairwell—heavy, tactical boots.
"Two coming up the north stairs," Dante muttered, his voice cold and steady amidst the chaos. He shoved Clara and Julian behind a plaster pillar. "Stay down."
Dante stepped into the corridor, raised his twin weapons, and fired four shots in less than a second. Two heavy thuds echoed through the stairwell followed by the clatter of dropped rifles. He didn't even check the bodies. He grabbed Clara’s hand, his leather grip tight and bruising, and pulled her down the emergency fire exit.
They spilled out into the freezing night. The Adirondack air hit them like a wall of ice, rain mixing with sleet that stung their faces.
Behind them, the third floor of the sanatorium erupted in flames—an incendiary charge.
"The cars are pinned down," Dante said, scanning the tree line. Red lasers sliced through the falling snow, searching for them. "We go through the pines. My safehouse is three miles west, past the gorge."
"My father won't survive three miles in this cold," Clara gasped, feeling Julian’s pulse fluttering wildly against her neck.
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"Then he dies in the snow," Dante answered coldly, but he immediately swept Julian up into a fireman's carry without breaking his stride. "Run, Clara. If you drop behind, they will not take you alive."
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