Chapter 11 - The Don Arrives With An Army And A Vengeance
The smoke from the crushed brick wall rolled across the warehouse floor like a funeral shroud.
Through the haze, the headlights of the armored transport cut two harsh white beams through the darkness.
Luca stepped out.
He didn't take cover.
He didn't crouch.
He wore a long charcoal overcoat over his tactical vest, the collar whipped back by the lake wind roaring through the gaping hole in the wall.
In his right hand was a combat shotgun; at his hip rested twin automatic pistols.
Behind him poured twelve Moretti commandos dressed in full black body armor, their laser sights painting the interior of the warehouse with a deadly web of crimson lines.
“Kill him!” Antonio Romano shrieked, scrambling behind an overturned steel shipping crate. “Shoot him down!”
Ramos and six Romano gunmen raised their weapons.
They never had the chance to pull the triggers.
A synchronized volley of suppressed gunfire ripped through the warehouse.
The muzzle flashes illuminated the rafters in staccato bursts.
Three of Romano’s men dropped instantly onto the blood-slicked concrete.
Ramos fired wildly from behind a rusted support column, his bullets sparking harmlessly against the heavy armored plates of Luca’s truck.
Luca advanced.
One measured stride after another.
He raised the shotgun with one hand.
*Boom.*
The wooden pallet Ramos had taken shelter behind exploded into splinters.
Ramos fell backward with a shriek of agony, buckshot tearing through his right shoulder and collarbone.
He slid down against the rusted iron beam, his weapon clattering into a puddle of brackish water.
I tried to push myself up against the concrete wall, clutching the silk shirt against my chest.
The noise inside the metal warehouse was deafening.
The smell of burning cordite, wet plaster, and copper filled the freezing air.
Another gunman leaped from behind a forklift, raising a submachine gun directly toward me, intending to use me as a shield.
Luca’s eyes snapped toward him.
Without breaking his stride, Luca drew the pistol from his hip.
A single, deafening shot echoed across the rafters.
The bullet struck the gunman squarely between the eyes.
The man crumpled to the floor less than five feet from where I sat shivering.
Luca didn't look at the fallen soldier.
His iron gaze locked directly onto me.
The terrifying, inhuman rage in his face vanished the moment his eyes met mine.
“Claire,” he called out over the dying gunfire.
He crossed the remaining distance between us in three long strides.
He dropped to one knee on the dirty, oil-streaked floor.
He threw his shotgun aside without a care.
His large, gloved hands cupped my cold, bruised face with an incredible, impossible gentleness.
“Are you hit? Did they shoot you?”
His voice was rough, trembling with an emotion I had never heard in a man like him before.
“No... no, I’m not shot,” I sobbed, tears spilling down my battered cheeks, washing away the grit and blood. “They killed Vanessa, Luca. Romano killed her right in front of me.”
Luca’s jaw set into stone, but his hands remained infinitely tender as he checked my bandaged wrists, making sure the cuts had not reopened too severely.
“She chose her grave three years ago,” Luca murmured.
He unbuttoned his heavy charcoal overcoat and wrapped it completely around me, lifting me effortlessly into his chest.
He held me against his Kevlar vest.
I buried my face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of cedar, cold rain, and gunsmoke.
For the first time since that enormous gold mirror had been shoved into my bleeding hands, the paralyzing terror in my soul shattered into absolute peace.
I was in the arms of the most dangerous man in Chicago.
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And in his arms, nothing on earth could touch me.
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