Chapter 4 - BLOOD ON THE SNOW
The red emergency strobe lights mounted along the vaulted ceiling of the master suite suddenly flared to life, casting an eerie, pulsating crimson glow across the room.
Enzo spun away from Harper, his hand instinctively dropping to the heavy, gold-plated Beretta tucked into the waistband of his trousers.
"Stay here," he ordered, his voice laced with absolute authority.
"If anyone opens this door besides me, you put a bullet between their eyes."
He shoved a spare tactical pistol across the mattress toward her, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a fierce intensity.
Harper didn't hesitate; her small, trembling hands closed around the cold steel of the weapon with a surprising familiarity that told Enzo she wasn't entirely a stranger to violence.
Without another word, Enzo yanked open the heavy oak bedroom door and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway.
The air outside was thick with the acrid, metallic stench of gunpowder drifting up from the grand foyer.
Down below, the sound of breaking glass and heavy combat boots echoed off the marble floors as armed intruders breached the perimeter.
Enzo moved with lethal, silent grace down the sweeping staircase, keeping his back pressed against the wood-paneled walls.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the foyer, he could see shadows moving across the snow-choked drive outside.
Two of his best men lay motionless in the crimson-stained snow near the fountains, their tactical vests ruined by close-range rifle fire.
"Boss!" a gruff voice shouted from the ground floor.
"We've got multiple hostiles! They bypassed the eastern gate codes!"
Enzo didn't answer with words; he raised his Beretta as a dark silhouette burst through the heavy double doors of the mansion.
*Bang.*
The muzzle flash illuminated the dark foyer for a fraction of a second as the intruder dropped instantly, a clean bullet hole right between his eyes.
Another attacker lunged from behind a marble pillar, swinging the butt of a shotgun toward Enzo's head.
Enzo ducked beneath the arc, pivoting sharply on his heel and driving his elbow straight into the man's throat with bone-crushing force.
As the attacker collapsed, gasping for air, Enzo pressed his boot against his chest, leveling the barrel of his gun between the man's eyes.
"Who sent you?" Enzo snarled, his voice dripping with venom.
The dying man coughed up a spray of dark blood, a twisted, macabre smile stretching across his pale lips.
"You... you thought you destroyed Preston Whitcomb," the man wheezed, his eyes rolling back.
"The old man... he doesn't leave loose ends. Especially not... his own daughter."
Enzo’s blood ran ice-cold.
He yanked the man up by his tactical vest, shaking him violently.
"What do you mean?"
"She... she's the key to the vault," the man gasped out his final breath, his head slumping sideways as life left his body.
Enzo stood up slowly in the middle of the carnage, the flashing red lights painting his suit in arterial shades of crimson.
Preston Whitcomb hadn't offered his daughter as a peace offering.
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He had sent her into the DeLuca estate as a Trojan horse—or perhaps, as a sacrifice to wipe out the entire bloodline in one fell swoop.
And up in the master suite, Harper Whitcomb was sitting alone with a loaded gun.
