Chapter 6 - The Ambush at the Crossing
For two weeks, the Morristown mansion existed in a strange, fragile bubble of peace.
Noah was flourishing. He spoke in full sentences now, recounting stories about his school, asking Hannah why airplanes left white lines in the sky, and insisting that she read him three chapters of Treasure Island every night before bed. Hannah found herself falling into an easy, warm rhythm with the boy, and an even more intoxicating, unspoken tension with his father.
Damian rarely left the compound. He held his business meetings in the private study, his voice muffled behind mahogany doors, but in the evenings, he joined them for dinner. He listened to Hannah talk about her dreams of opening her own bakery, about her mother’s recovery at the Morristown hospital, about normal, everyday life that Damian had abandoned twenty years ago.
""You should leave this life, Damian,"" Hannah said one evening as they walked along the garden terrace while Noah slept upstairs. The autumn air was crisp, carrying the scent of pine. ""You're smart enough to run legitimate companies without the violence.""
Damian stopped by the stone balustrade, looking out at the darkness. ""When you build an empire out of blood and debts, Hannah, you don't get to resign. You either rule it until you die, or you let other men slaughter everyone who shares your name.""
He looked at her, his hand reaching out to gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. His touch was warm, sending a shiver straight down her spine. ""I thought I was dead inside after Lauren passed. I thought my only job was to leave Noah a kingdom he would never have to defend. But you... you brought light back into this house. You brought my son back.""
Hannah’s breath caught. ""Damian...""
Before he could answer, the silence was shattered by a low vibration from the tactical radio at his belt.
""Boss,"" Grant's voice crackled through the speaker, tight with urgency. ""We have an emergency. St. Jude’s private wing in Morristown. A perimeter alarm just tripped at Mrs. Brooks’s medical floor. Two unidentified vehicles breached the basement dock.""
Hannah gasped, terror clamping around her throat. ""My mother!""
""Grant, mobilize Team One,"" Damian barked into the radio, his gentle expression instantly vanishing behind a mask of pure, lethal fury. ""Lock down the house with Team Two. We are moving right now.""
Within sixty seconds, the black armored SUV tore through the estate gates into the night, siren lights flashing behind the dark grill. Damian sat in the front passenger seat, an automatic rifle across his knees, while Hannah sat in the back, gripping the leather seat in sheer agony.
""If they hurt her, Damian—""
""They won't,"" Damian promised, his voice cold as a frozen grave. ""I swear to you, Hannah. No one touches your family.""
They hit the Route 24 crossing at eighty miles per hour. As they entered the underpass beneath the railway bridge, a blinding wall of halogen lights suddenly flooded the highway ahead.
A commercial dump truck had turned sideways across the three lanes.
May you like
""Ambush!"" Grant yelled, stomping on the brakes.
From the overpass above, automatic gunfire rained down like hail, tearing into the reinforced windshield of the SUV in deafening, spiderwebbing explosions of sparks.
