Chapter 6 - Siege in the Eye of the Storm
The armored Suburban cut its headlights three hundred yards from the plantation
gates, creeping through the flooded live oak avenue under the cover of the
screaming wind and driving rain.
The grand manor rose out of the storm like an antebellum fortress.
The lower floor windows were ablaze with golden light from the chandeliers,
casting long, fractured reflections across the rising brown floodwaters. Through
the heavy plate glass of the grand parlor, forty syndicate bosses were still
drinking bourbon, completely unaware that an execution squad was closing in on
their perimeter.
Matteo brought the vehicle to a halt in the shadowed concealment of the carriage
house.
“Thermal drone feeds are up, boss,” Matteo reported, handing Lorenzo a rugged
tactical screen.
On the screen, sixty glowing white heat signatures were moving methodically
through the flooded cypress groves, advancing from the south ridge toward the
rear service entrances of the house. They wore full tactical armor and carried
suppressed carbines.
“Vance’s vanguard,” Lorenzo analyzed with surgical detachment. “They’re using
the hurricane’s ambient noise to mask their approach. They intend to breach the
kitchen and the wine cellar simultaneously.”
He turned to his team. “Matteo. Take four men through the old root cellar. Alert
the allied capos in the parlor. Do not cause a panic. Tell them to draw their
sidearms, extinguish the main chandeliers, and take defensive positions behind
the mahogany wainscoting.”
“Understood, Mr. Moretti.”
“Dr. Harris,” Lorenzo continued. “Move my mother into the reinforced panic vault
beneath the library. The entrance is behind the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It
has independent air filtration and medical power.”
“I’ll take care of her with my life, sir,” Dr. Harris promised.
Lorenzo looked down at Baron.
The old Doberman was standing on all four legs now. The intravenous fluids and
steroids had worked a near-miracle; his eyes were alert, his teeth bared
slightly, his tail stiff. He smelled the scent of strangers in his territory.
“Baron stays with Evelyn,” Lorenzo said, his gaze locking onto mine. “You take
my mother and the doctor into the vault. Once the steel door locks from the
inside, you do not open it for anyone. Not even for me, unless you hear three
distinct knocks and the words: ‘The iron sparrow has landed.’”
“Lorenzo...” I said, using his first name for the first time without realizing
it. “What are you going to do?”
Lorenzo pulled a tactical vest over his black sweater, sliding four spare rifle
magazines into the chest pouches. He racked the bolt of an M4 carbine with cold,
rhythmic efficiency.
“I am going to remind Don Vance and the five families,” Lorenzo said, his silver
eyes flashing with lethal brilliance, “why my father named this estate The
Slaughterhouse.”
Before I could answer, the first crack of suppressed gunfire shattered the
night.
The exterior floodlights around the rear courtyard exploded in a shower of
May you like
sparks.
The siege had begun.
