Chapter 4 - A Serpent at the Table
Before the guards could even clear their holsters, the heavy double doors of the study burst open.
It wasn't my men.
It was Grace.
She stood in the doorway, breathing hard, holding an ancient double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun that Isabelle’s grandfather had mounted above the mantle in the second-floor sitting room. She didn't look like a terrified housekeeper. She looked like an avenging angel, her gray eyes burning, the barrels leveled straight at Terry’s chest.
"Nobody move," Grace said. Her voice didn't waver by a single decibel. "Drop your hands away from your jackets, or I swear to God I will blow you through that wall."
The sheer absurdity of a twenty-nine-year-old housekeeper in an apron holding two hardened syndicate killers at gunpoint bought me the exact half-second I needed.
My right hand whipped behind my back.
The Kimber came up.
I didn't yell. I didn't issue warnings. I fired twice.
The first heavy .45 slug tore through Terry’s right shoulder, spinning him around and sending his gun clattering across the hardwood floor. The second bullet caught Enzo in the knee. He collapsed with a shriek of agony, clutching his shattered joint.
Marcus lunged backward, knocking his chair over, reaching desperately for the pistol beneath his armpit.
I vaulted the bar.
Two hundred and ten pounds of bone and fury collided with Marcus Vance, slamming him into the mahogany paneling. The wood cracked behind his head. I caught his right wrist with my left hand, twisting it violently until bone snapped with a wet *pop*. His gun dropped to the floor.
With my free hand, I drove the butt of my Kimber directly into his nose.
Blood exploded across his face. Marcus fell to his knees, gasping, spitting crimson onto my Persian rug.
Terry was groaning against the wall, bleeding heavily. Enzo was on his back, writhing. Grace remained rooted in the doorway, the shotgun steady, her eyes tracking between the two downed gunmen with ice-cold discipline.
"Check their weapons," I ordered without taking my eyes off Marcus.
Grace stepped forward, kicked Terry’s pistol away, then used the tip of the shotgun barrel to push Enzo’s gun across the floor toward me. She was efficient, ruthless in her focus.
"Who the hell are you?" Marcus wheezed from the floor, his nose shattered, blood pouring into his mouth. He looked up at Grace in pure bewilderment. "Dominic... she's... she's a fed..."
"She's my children's protector," I growled, stepping on Marcus’s broken wrist. He screamed, curling into a ball. "And you are a dead man walking."
"Dominic, listen to me!" Marcus cried out, desperation cracking through his polished facade. "It wasn't me! Someone is feeding those kids lies! They were traumatized—they were babies! They don't know what they saw!"
I reached down, seized Marcus by the throat, and dragged him up until he was pinned against the wall. His feet dangled two inches above the floor.
"They told me about the envelope, Marcus," I whispered into his ear. "They told me about the wolf ring tapping on the minivan glass. They told me what you promised to do to their tongues if they spoke."
All the color drained from Marcus’s face. The lie died in his throat.
"You sat at my table," I said, my voice shaking with rage that had fermented for four hundred days. "You held Nora at her christening. You took an oath to protect my family."
"You... you were getting weak, Dominic," Marcus choked out, his eyes bulging as my fingers clamped around his windpipe. "Isabelle was going to take the kids and leave you! She found the books! She was going to hand everything over to the federal prosecutor in Brooklyn! If she went down, we all went down! I did it for the family!"
"Isabelle was the family," I snarled.
"Wait," Grace’s voice cut through the violence.
I glanced back, my grip tightening on Marcus’s neck. "Stay out of this, Grace."
"Don't kill him yet," she said, her voice chillingly calm. "He didn't act alone."
I frowned, holding Marcus suspended against the wall. "What are you talking about?"
Grace lowered the shotgun slightly, her gaze piercing into Marcus. "A week after I started working here, I found a bug in the girls' nursery. Under the baseboard. It wasn't standard surveillance—it was linked to a private cellular relay. And three days ago, I saw a black sedan watching the girls when I took them into the garden. They were waiting for something."
She stepped closer to Marcus, her face inches from his bloody mess.
"He didn't just kill Isabelle to hide his theft," Grace said. "He’s been planning a takeover. And if he’s here right now, his men are already moving on your perimeter."
As if summoned by her words, the house's exterior perimeter alarms began to wail.
A high-pitched, piercing siren echoed through the mansion.
May you like
Marcus grinned through his bloody teeth, spitting a mouthful of red onto my sleeve. "Too late, Dominic. You were so busy playing grieving widower that you didn't notice the world moved on. Thirty of my guys are coming down that driveway right now. You and your mute brats are dying tonight."
***
