Chapter 6 - The Blood On The Roses
The gunfire was deafening inside the enclosed space. Outside, the wail of estate security sirens began to pierce the night, but Vivian knew the Callahan mercenaries had cut the perimeter wires. Dominic leaned out from behind the mahogany table, firing three measured, deafening shots. Two of the intruders dropped instantly to the floor, but the remaining two advanced, their weapons trained on the dining alcove.
“Give us the drive, Mrs. Mercer, and we let you walk out with the baby,” one of the men barked through his tactical mask.
“Over my dead body,” Dominic growled. He tried to stand, but his left leg gave out; a bullet had clipped his thigh, leaving a dark, spreading stain across his slacks.
Vivian looked down at the flash drive in her hand, then looked at her husband bleeding profusely on the floor to shield her belly. For all his deceit, for all his arrogance and mafia cruelty, he hadn't hesitated for a millisecond to use his own flesh as a human shield for her and their child.
In that moment of raw survival, the timid wife died, and a mother’s iron will took over.
Vivian reached into the open drawer of the sideboard beside her, her fingers wrapping around the emergency flare gun Dominic always kept stashed near the terrace doors. She stood up abruptly from behind the mahogany counter.
“You want the drive?” she screamed. “Catch it!”
She hurled a silver metal lipstick case into the darkness toward the fireplace. Both mercenaries instinctively pivoted their weapons toward the flying object.
Vivian pulled the trigger of the flare gun.
A blinding, roaring ball of phosphorus fire erupted across the room, striking the nearest mercenary square in the chest and igniting the velvet curtains into an inferno. The blinding white light disoriented the second shooter just long enough for Dominic to fire twice through the smoke.
The man collapsed backward onto the burning rug.
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Dominic collapsed against Vivian’s knees, gasping for breath, smoke swirling around his blackened face. “Vivian... you’re insane...”
“I told you eight years ago, Dominic,” she said, hauling his heavy arm over her shoulder as sirens wailed closer down the driveway. “I’m pregnant, not helpless. Now get up before your stupid house burns down around us.”
