Chapter 7 - The Ambush at the Gala
The lights in Suite 1402 flickered once, twice, and died.
Total darkness engulfed the room, followed immediately by the deep, resonant blare of the hotel’s emergency siren. Red auxiliary lights bathed the corridor outside in a sinister, bloody glow.
Natalie gasped, immediately darting toward the bed. "Leo! Maya!"
"Stay down!" Dominic commanded, moving with blinding speed.
In a single second, Dominic drew a customized matte-black semi-automatic from his shoulder holster. He pulled Natalie and the two children off the bed, ushering them into the master bathroom—a reinforced sanctuary lined with reinforced marble.
"Dominic, what is happening?!" Natalie cried, pulling Maya and Leo against her chest. Maya began to whimper, clinging to her mother’s sweater, while Leo’s little jaw was set in rigid terror.
"Vanessa made a move," Dominic said, checking the magazine of his weapon with a metallic *click*. "She hired Rossi to take you."
Natalie’s face went white. "Rossi? The butcher from the south docks?"
"Nobody is touching you," Dominic vowed. He knelt before the children, placing a hand on Leo’s trembling shoulder. "Leo. Look at me."
The boy locked his storm-gray eyes onto Dominic’s.
"You're the man of this house right now," Dominic said, his voice completely steady, exuding absolute authority. "I need you to hold your sister’s hand and keep your mother behind you in this bathroom. Do not open this door for anyone except me or Marco. Do you understand?"
Leo swallowed hard, his tiny chest heaving. Then, he gave a sharp, resolute nod. "I understand."
Dominic looked at Natalie. For the first time in five years, the wall between them vanished. In her eyes, he saw not hatred, but the terrified love of a mother and the lingering trust of the girl he had once promised to protect forever.
"I will fix this, Nat," Dominic whispered, leaning forward to press a hard, fierce kiss to her forehead. "I swear on my life."
He turned and bolted out of the bathroom, pulling the heavy, reinforced oak door shut until the deadbolt snapped into place.
The outer suite doors blew open with a deafening concussive blast.
Smoke and plaster dust filled the air as three masked mercenaries in tactical gear rushed into the room, their suppressed submachine guns raised.
Dominic didn't wait.
He fired twice through the haze. The first man collapsed instantly, a bullet through his neck. Dominic dove behind the heavy marble dining table as automatic fire shredded the velvet chairs and shattered the mirror behind him into a million sparkling diamonds.
"Moretti’s in here!" one of the gunmen shouted. "Kill him! Rossi said fifty grand for the Don's head!"
Dominic rolled from behind the table, firing two precise shots that took down the second gunman. But before he could adjust his aim, the third mercenary charged him, slamming Dominic into the wall. The gun was knocked from Dominic’s hand, skidding across the polished floor.
A combat knife flashed in the red emergency light.
Dominic roared, catching the attacker’s wrist inches from his throat. Five years of pent-up rage, self-loathing, and desperate fury exploded out of Dominic. He snapped the man’s wrist with a sickening crack, drove an elbow into his temple, and slammed his head repeatedly into the marble floor until the man went limp.
Breathing heavily, blood dripping from a cut on his brow, Dominic snatched his weapon from the floor.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the bedroom balcony.
Dominic rushed in. The French doors leading to the fourteenth-floor terrace had been kicked open. Through the rain and darkness, he saw a fourth gunman—dressed in an officer’s uniform—carrying a thrashing, screaming bundle wrapped in a blanket.
It was Maya.
She had slipped out of the bathroom when the door was blown open by the blast shockwave.
"Daddy!" Maya’s terrified scream pierced through the howling storm.
"Let her go!" Dominic bellowed, sprinting out into the torrential rain on the slick stone terrace.
May you like
The gunman turned at the edge of the terrace railing, holding Maya as a human shield, aiming his weapon straight at Dominic’s chest. "Back off, Don Moretti! Or I drop her fourteen stories onto the pavement!"
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