Chapter 6 - The Breach at Oyster Bay
I was wrong about Marco Bellandi.
I thought he was hiding in Montauk. I thought he was playing defensive chess. But a desperate animal doesn't hide when it's cornered—it strikes where it thinks the enemy is weakest.
We were twenty miles down the Long Island Expressway when my phone screamed.
It was Luca’s emergency radio channel.
"BOSS! IT'S A DIVERSION!" Luca’s voice was drowned out by the deafening roar of automatic gunfire over the speaker. "MONTAUK WAS A DECOY! BELLANDI’S MEN ARE AT THE ESTATE! THEY BROKE THROUGH THE EAST GATE!"
My blood turned to ice.
"ELENA! CALEB!" I shouted into the phone.
"THEY'RE IN THE PANIC ROOM WITH ME!" Luca yelled back, heavy thuds echoing against the metal door on his end. "THEY HAVE HEAVY BREACHING CHARGES! WE CAN'T HOLD THE OUTER PERIMETER FOR MORE THAN TEN MINUTES!"
"TURN THE CARS AROUND!" I roared to my driver. "NOW!"
The driver slammed on the brakes, sending the heavy armored SUV into a two-hundred-degree slide across three lanes of traffic, hitting the siren as we surged back toward Oyster Bay at one hundred and twenty miles per hour.
Ten minutes.
That was all they had.
In the back of the SUV, I checked my assault rifle, racking the heavy slide with a sharp, mechanical click. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears—not with fear, but with a terrifying, apocalyptic rage.
If anything happened to Elena or Caleb, I would burn Long Island to the ground.
By the time our three armored SUVs tore through the shattered iron gates of the Oyster Bay estate, smoke was billowing from the grand foyer.
Eight rival vehicles were parked on the lawn, and two dozen armed men wearing dark tactical gear were firing heavily at the remaining estate guards.
"LEAVE NONE OF THEM ALIVE!" I screamed, kicking the SUV door open before the vehicle had even fully stopped.
I charged onto the lawn like a storm.
My suppressed rifle barked continuously. Two mercenaries dropped near the fountain before they even realized where the fire was coming from. My men poured out behind me, laying down a devastating wall of lead that cut through Bellandi’s forces like wheat before a scythe.
I moved through the smoke-filled grand hall, stepping over fallen body armor and shattered marble.
Down in the basement corridor leading to the panic room, three mercenaries were setting a thermite charge against the reinforced steel door.
"HEY!" I shouted.
They turned.
I didn't give them time to raise their weapons. I cleared the corridor in four seconds flat, dropping all three with surgical precision.
I shoved the smoking thermite charge off the door, kicking it down the hall where it sputtered harmlessly against the stone floor.
I punched the biometric master code into the electronic keypad.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-CLICK.
The heavy steel door swung open.
Inside, Luca was bleeding from a graze on his forehead, his pistol aimed directly at the opening. Behind him, huddled in the darkest corner, was Elena.
She was covering Caleb with her own body, holding a heavy iron fire poker in her right hand, her eyes blazing with the primal ferocity of a mother ready to fight to the death.
When she saw my face through the smoke, the iron poker dropped from her hand, clattering against the concrete floor.
"Vincent..." she gasped.
I dropped my rifle and ran to them, throwing my arms around both of them, pulling them into a tight, desperate embrace.
"I'm here," I choked out, pressing my face into Elena’s hair, kissing Caleb’s trembling head. "I'm here. You're safe."
May you like
Caleb wrapped his tiny arms around my neck, crying softly against my collarbone. "Uncle Vince... they made loud noises..."
"I know, kid," I whispered, holding him so tight I could feel his heartbeat skipping against my chest. "I know. But the loud noises are over now."
