Chapter 7 - The Iron Gates Fall
“Down! Both of you, get on the floor!” Gabriel barked.
He didn't wait for them to comply. He grabbed Chloe by the waist with one arm and his mother by the shoulder with the other, bodily dragging them behind the heavy walnut bed frame just as a burst of high-caliber rifle fire shattered the bedroom’s French doors.
Glass rained down in a blinding, razor-sharp blizzard. Heavy wooden splinters exploded from the doorframes as bullets chewed through the plaster walls, tearing antique oil paintings to ribbons.
The alarm klaxons wailed—a rhythmic, deafening scream that vibrated through the floorboards: BREEP. BREEP. BREEP.
Gabriel was on his belly, pulling a compact submachine gun from a concealed panel in the wainscoting beneath the nightstand. His face was entirely devoid of fear; in the middle of absolute chaos, he looked completely in his element, a predator waking up for the hunt.
He keyed a radio strapped to his collar. “Nico! Report!”
Static screamed through the speaker, followed by the deafening rattle of gunfire. “They hit the south gate with a dump truck, Boss! At least twenty shooters! They’re wearing tactical gear—these aren't street punks, they’re Santoro’s heavy hitters! Frankie let them through the security perimeter!”
“Pull the inner line back to the main foyer!” Gabriel yelled into the radio. “Don't let them breach the stairs! I’m moving the package to the vault!”
He tossed the radio down and looked at Chloe. Her hands were clamped over her ears, her face pressed into the plush carpet, her entire body shaking like a leaf in an autumn gale.
Gabriel reached out, his calloused hand cupping the back of her neck, his thumb pressing firmly into her jawline to force her eyes to meet his.
“Look at me, Chloe,” he commanded. His voice cut through the gunfire like a blade. “Look at me.”
She forced her eyes open. His face was inches away, his dark eyes fierce, steady, and terrifyingly focused.
“You don't leave my mother’s side,” Gabriel said, every word hammered into stone. “The panic room is behind the wine cellar in the basement. You take her there. You lock the blast door from the inside. There is a secondary keypad behind the electrical panel. The code is my father’s birthday: 0-9-1-4. You don't open that door for anyone except me. You understand?”
Chloe’s chest heaved. “What... what about you?”
“I have to go kill my godfather,” Gabriel said simply.
He turned to his mother.
Beatrice was crouched against the bed, her knuckles white, her pearls resting against the carpet. She reached up and grabbed Gabriel’s wrist, her fingers digging in with surprising strength.
She signed with one trembling hand:
Bring him back alive. I want to look him in the eyes before he burns.
Gabriel looked at Chloe. “What did she say?”
Chloe swallowed the bile rising in her throat. “She says... bring Frankie back alive. She wants to look him in the eye.”
A dark, lethal smile touched the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. “Tell her she has a deal.”
He rose into a low crouch, racked the bolt of his submachine gun with a loud, metallic clack, and kicked open the bedroom’s heavy interior door.
Two men in black tactical vests were sprinting down the hallway, assault rifles raised.
Gabriel stepped out into the open corridor and fired three controlled bursts.
The muzzle flashes lit up the hallway in blinding strobes of light. The two attackers collapsed backward onto the carpet, their weapons skittering across the floorboards.
Gabriel didn't even look down at the bodies. He waved his hand toward the back service stairs. “Move! Now!”
Chloe grabbed Beatrice’s hand. The old woman moved with shocking agility, clutching her skirt as they sprinted down the narrow, carpeted service corridor, trailing in Gabriel’s bloody wake.
They reached the top of the kitchen stairs when the lights in the entire estate suddenly died.
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Complete, pitch-black darkness swallowed the house.
From the bottom of the stairwell, three distinct clicks echoed through the gloom—the sound of night-vision goggles powering up.
