Chapter 6 - The Strike
The kiss tasted of dark coffee, rain, and absolute surrender.
Clara tangled her fingers in Rico’s thick, dark hair as he carried her to the soft leather sofa, coming down beside her, his large hands tracing the curves of her body with a reverence that made her shiver. For the first time in her life, Clara felt completely cherished, completely safe—even in the middle of an empire built on violence.
For three days, their unspoken love blossomed into reality. They stole quiet kisses in the hallway while Leo played with his blocks, held hands under the table during dinner, and shared late-night conversations on the balcony until the early hours of the morning. Rico looked younger, lighter, the cold shadows of his past finally receding into the warm light Clara had brought into his home.
Then, on a dark, foggy Thursday afternoon, the illusion shattered.
Rico was away in Manhattan, attending an emergency sit-down with the heads of the Five Families to settle the waterfront dispute once and for all. Dominic and six guards were stationed around the Bay Ridge estate.
Clara was in the playroom on the ground floor, helping Leo paint a large rainbow on a piece of cardboard, when the estate’s security alarm began to blare—a sharp, deafening, metallic siren that cut through the quiet house like a knife!
WAAAH! WAAAH! WAAAH!
Leo dropped his paintbrush, screaming in terror, throwing his arms around Clara’s neck.
“Clara!” Mrs. Gable shrieked, running into the hallway. “The perimeter gates! Someone rammed the front gates with a truck!”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The sound of automatic gunfire erupted from the front driveway! Glass shattered on the floor above them as heavy-caliber rounds tore through the grand foyer!
“In here! NOW!” Clara screamed, grabbing Leo into her arms and pulling Mrs. Gable toward the hidden panic room behind the library’s oak bookshelf—a room Rico had shown her during her first week at the house.
Before they could reach the library door, the front double-doors of the mansion were kicked open with a sickening CRACK.
Three men in tactical vests and ski masks burst into the hallway, assault rifles raised. Leading them was a tall, sharp-featured man with yellow teeth and a cruel sneer—Vincent Falcone himself.
“Find the kid!” Falcone yelled, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. “Find the kid and the girl! Moretti surrenders the docks in ten minutes if I have his son’s neck in my hand!”
Dominic stepped into the hallway from the kitchen, firing his pistol, dropping one of Falcone’s shooters before a burst of automatic fire caught Dominic in the shoulder, sending him crashing to the floor in a spray of blood!
“Dominic!” Clara gasped, pinned behind the corner wall of the hallway.
Leo was sobbing hysterically against her chest, his small body shaking uncontrollably. “Clara! Clara! I’m scared!”
Clara looked at the crying boy, then at the blood pooling under Dominic’s shoulder, then toward the library door twenty feet away. There was no time. Falcone’s men were sweeping room by room. If she stayed hidden, they would find them in seconds.
She looked at Mrs. Gable. “Take Leo. Run to the panic room. Lock the door from the inside.”
“Clara, no! What are you going to do?!” Mrs. Gable wept.
“I’m going to make sure they don't look for him,” Clara said, her voice dropping into a absolute, fearless calm.
She handed the crying child to Mrs. Gable, pressing a quick, fierce kiss against Leo’s forehead. “I love you, sweet boy. Be quiet for Clara, okay?”
She stood up, grabbed a heavy bronze statue from a side table, and intentionally threw it through the glass window of the dining room!
CRASH!
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“Over there!” Falcone’s man shouted. “In the dining room!”
Clara sprinted down the opposite corridor, her sneakers squeaking on the marble floor, drawing every single gunman away from the library and away from Leo.
