Chapter 6 - The Breach
The world detonated.
A deafening flashbang grenade exploded in the center of the library, filling the room with blinding magnesium light and a high-pitched screech that felt like an icepick driven through my eardrums.
Matteo didn't hesitate for a microsecond.
Before the shrapnel could touch me, he tackled me off the hearth, covering my entire body with his own as we slammed behind the heavy mahogany desk. Splinters of wood and chunks of plaster rained down on his back as automatic gunfire tore through the bookshelves above us.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The smell of cordite and burning paper instantly choked the air.
"STRIKE TEAM IN THE REAR!" Leo’s voice roared through the intercom system over the blare of the emergency sirens. "THEY USED PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES ON THE SEA WALL! WE’VE GOT DOZEN COMMING THROUGH THE TERRACE!"
Matteo rolled off me, pulling a suppressed Glock from his shoulder holster and racking the slide with brutal efficiency.
His eyes were completely calm. The tender lover from thirty seconds ago was gone; in his place was a god of war, cold, calculating, and lethal.
"Stay down, Nora," he commanded, his voice slicing through the ringing in my ears. "Crawling distance only. Get behind the steel safe behind the false bookcase. Do not move until I come for you."
"Matteo, no!" I screamed, grabbing his wrist. "There are too many of them!"
He leaned down, pressed a hard, bruising kiss to my mouth, and pulled his arm free.
"Nobody takes you from my house," he snarled.
He rose from behind the desk like an avenging shadow.
Two men in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles burst through the shattered French doors, their assault rifles raised. Matteo fired four rounds in half a second. Both men collapsed before their boots touched the rug, crimson blooming across their ballistic plates.
Gunfire erupted across the entire estate.
Glass shrieked, grenades rattled the foundations, and the heavy thud of automatic weapons shook the walls. I crawled on my belly across the floor, dodging burning embers and falling books, my fingers scraping against the plaster as I reached the hidden alcove behind the bookcase.
Then, through the smoke drifting across the hallway, I saw Leo Mercer.
He was pinned behind a marble statue near the main archway, bleeding heavily from his shoulder, his sidearm clicking empty. A massive mercenary in Byrne’s colors was rounding the corner with a tactical shotgun aimed dead center at Leo’s chest.
Matteo was fifty feet away, trading fire with three men on the terrace, oblivious to his lieutenant’s imminent death.
Something inside me snapped.
Ten years of feeling helpless, ten years of scraping for pennies, ten years of being a victim of someone else’s shadow—it all vanished in a split-second surge of pure, blinding adrenaline.
I didn't cower.
I reached out, grabbed a heavy bronze bust of Julius Caesar sitting on the bottom shelf of the collapsed bookcase, and scrambled to my feet.
The mercenary was taking his final step toward Leo, his finger tightening on the shotgun trigger.
I lunged out of the smoke like a banshee.
With every ounce of strength in my body, fueled by fury and twenty-six years of fighting for survival, I drove the heavy bronze bust directly into the side of the mercenary’s helmet.
CLANG!
The force of the blow shattered his visor and knocked his head sideways. He stumbled, howling in shock, dropping the shotgun onto the marble.
Before he could recover, Leo kicked his legs out from under him, pulled a backup knife from his boot, and ended the threat with a swift, merciless thrust.
Leo slumped against the statue, clutching his bleeding shoulder, staring up at me with wide, disbelieving eyes.
"Jesus Christ, Gallagher," Leo coughed, spit and blood flecking his lips. "You really do hit people."
"Workplace safety," I gasped, wiping dust and sweat from my eyes, holding the bloodied bronze bust like a war club. "I told you I was serious."
A sudden, terrifying silence fell over the corridor.
The gunfire outside had stopped.
Through the drifting cordite smoke stepped Matteo Conti. His suit was shredded, his knuckles raw, his gun smoking in his hand. He looked at the dead mercenary on the floor, looked at Leo holding his shoulder, and then his eyes landed on me—standing in the rubble, covered in soot, holding Caesar’s bust like an ancient warrior.
For a second, the most feared crime boss in Boston looked completely, utterly stunned.
Then, a low, rumbling laugh escaped his chest—a dark, triumphant sound that echoed off the ruined walls.
"Remind me never to make you angry, little bird," Matteo said, crossing the distance and pulling me violently against his chest, crushing me in an embrace so fierce it knocked the breath from my lungs.
"We have a problem, Boss," Leo interrupted, struggling to his feet. He held up a satellite phone retrieved from the dead mercenary’s vest. "Byrne didn't come to kill her tonight. This was a diversion."
Matteo stiffened, his grip on me tightening. "Explain."
Leo’s face was grim. "Byrne just hijacked the freight terminal at South Boston Harbor. He has the key from Brookline. He’s running an override on the port’s central mainframe to locate the original shipping container where Patrick Gallagher hid the physical backup server. If he breaches that terminal, he burns the evidence and takes the forty million."
May you like
Matteo looked down at me, his winter eyes turning into molten steel.
"Then we don't wait for him to come to us," Matteo declared. "We go to the harbor. And we bury Damian Byrne once and for all."
