Chapter 3 - The Siege of Long Island
The movement was instantaneous.
Before Marcus’s finger could clear the safety catch of his suppressed pistol, Dominic lunged forward with the explosive violence of a striking panther. He didn't go for a weapon; he went for the throat.
His right hand slammed into Marcus’s collarbone, driving the security chief backward against the heavy oak pantry door with a force that rattled every glass jar on the shelves. The Glock flew from Marcus’s hand, skidding across the polished marble floor and coming to a stop near the kitchen island.
“Grace! Take the girls—basement, now!” Dominic roared, wrestling Marcus’s arms behind his back in a brutal, practiced submission hold.
Grace didn't hesitate. She swept little Nora up into her arms, grabbed Sophie by the hand, and yelled at Olivia to run, dragging the three terrified children toward the reinforced service stairs leading down to the secure underground shelter.
“You think a basement is going to save them, Dominic?” Marcus choked out, spitting blood onto the tile as Dominic twisted his arm upward with bone-breaking pressure. “The perimeter gates are locked down on my override code! The estate is sealed! We’re cut off from the outside world!”
“Shut up,” Dominic snarled, delivering a devastating knee strike to Marcus’s ribs that sent the security chief collapsing onto the floor in a wheezing heap.
Dominic didn't waste a second. He scooped up the dropped Glock, racked the slide to chamber a round, and sprinted toward the main hallway.
He knew Marcus was right about one thing: the estate’s automated security protocols were tied directly to the master console in the basement security annex—an annex that Marcus had programmed and maintained for a decade. If Marcus had triggered the lockdown sequence, the reinforced steel shutters over every window and door had just dropped into place, turning the twenty-two-room mansion into a concrete-and-steel tomb.
Sirens began to wail through the estate—not police sirens, but the high-pitched, internal security klaxon indicating a perimeter breach.
Dominic reached the grand foyer just as the massive front double doors slammed downward, sealing shut with a deafening hydraulic thunk. The amber emergency lights flickered to life along the baseboards, casting long, writhing shadows across Isabelle’s portrait hanging above the mantelpiece.
He raised his weapon, his back pressed firmly against the Venetian plaster wall, his eyes scanning the grand staircase and the darkened corridors leading to the east wing.
Click.
A faint sound—the unmistakable click of a radio transmitter—echoed from the second-floor gallery.
“Alpha team to command,” a gruff, mechanical voice filtered through a hidden speaker in the ceiling molding. “The estate is sealed. The targets are boxed in. Do we proceed with zero-witness protocol?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached.
They weren't just dealing with a rogue security chief. Marcus had brought an entire tactical strike team onto the grounds disguised as routine maintenance personnel. They were professionals—ex-military mercenaries hired by the Calabrese syndicate to finish the job they had started fourteen months ago outside the preschool.
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They wanted the girls. They wanted the ledgers. And most of all, they wanted Dominic Romano erased from the map.
“Come and get them,” Dominic whispered into the empty air, raising the Glock as the first heavy boot hit the oak stairs above.
