Chapter 7 - The Gathering Storm
The blast did not come from inside the apartment.
It was a high-caliber anti-material round, punching through the reinforced exterior glass of the penthouse terrace with the concussive crack of a lightning strike.
The glass didn't shatter into loose shards—it was bullet-resistant, turning instantly into a spiderweb of opaque, crystalline white—but the kinetic force knocked both of us off our feet.
Dominic moved with the speed of an animal.
Even as we fell, his arm wrapped around my waist, twisting his body in mid-air so that his back took the brunt of the impact against the oak parquet. He rolled instantly, pinning me beneath him, his weight shielding my head and torso.
“Lily!” I screamed, clawing at his shoulders.
“Gianni has her!” Dominic barked against my ear.
Through the haze of plaster dust, I saw the study door slam open. Gianni had already scooped Lily off the sofa, wrapping her in his heavy coat, retreating into the reinforced steel panic room concealed behind the library bookcase.
*Crack! Crack!*
Two more rounds tore through the weakened glass, blowing chunks of plaster from the ceiling, raining pulverized drywall down upon us like snow.
“They're on the roof of the adjacent building,” Dominic hissed, pulling his pistol from the holster hanging on the back of the dining chair in one fluid motion. He dragged me across the floor, keeping low beneath the marble perimeter of the kitchen island.
“I thought you said Bellini was going to be arrested!” I gasped, my throat burning from the dust.
“Matteo’s lawyers got tipped off,” Dominic said, his jaw locked in a terrifying grimace. “He knew the raid was coming. This isn't an extortion attempt, Elena. This is a scorched-earth hit. He wants everyone in this room dead before the feds can take his testimony.”
The lights flickered, died, and plunged the penthouse into pitch blackness.
Emergency sirens began their high-pitched wail from the street eighty stories below. But up here, there was only the cold wind howling through the punctured glass and the sound of heavy boots breaching the private service elevator in the hallway.
“Elena, listen to me,” Dominic whispered, his hand clamping down on my shoulder with bruising strength.
In the faint, blue-gray light filtering from the Manhattan skyline, his face was entirely calm. The exhaustion was gone, replaced by the lethal, hyper-focused clarity of a warlord in his element.
“You crawl into the pantry behind the stove,” he said, his voice flat, steady, leaving no room for argument. “The door is reinforced oak. Lock it from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except me or Gianni. Do you understand?”
“No,” I said, my fingers digging into the fabric of his undershirt. “No, Dominic, they have rifles!”
“They have rifles. I have home-field advantage,” he said.
He leaned in, and before I could draw another breath, his mouth came down on mine.
It wasn't gentle. It was hard, fierce, tasting of copper and smoke, a claim staked in the middle of a war zone. It lasted only two seconds, but it left my senses spinning, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
He pulled back, his dark eyes glittering in the gloom.
“Lock the door, Elena,” he commanded.
May you like
He shoved me toward the recessed pantry door, spun on his heel, and vanished into the shadows of the long hallway just as the service elevator doors were blown inward with a deafening, metallic *boom*.
***
