Chapter 4 - A Mother’s Instinct Against Loaded Guns
The metal stairs leading to the rooftop maintenance hatch rattled beneath our frantic boots. The cold night air whipped against my face as Sal kicked open the heavy iron door, revealing the sprawling expanse of the Manhattan skyline beneath a blanket of low-hanging storm clouds. On the helipad seventy feet away, the twin rotors of Vincent’s private chopper were already beginning to spin, whining into a deafening roar as the pilot prepared for an emergency takeoff.
“Almost there, sweetheart,” I whispered into Emma’s ear, shielding her eyes from the blinding spotlights surrounding the pad. “Keep your eyes closed, mommy’s got you.”
Suddenly, the steel door behind us was kicked off its hinges.
“Going somewhere, old man?”
Marco stepped onto the rooftop, flanked by three heavily armed men with tactical rifles. The gold watch on his wrist gleamed under the floodlights, spattered with fresh droplets of blood that weren't his own. His face was twisted into a triumphant sneer.
“Did you really think I’d leave the roof uncovered, Vincent?” Marco yelled over the thrum of the helicopter blades. “You went soft. The moment you knelt down for a six-year-old beggar girl, every family in the Commission knew your time was finished. Hand over the keys to the Swiss holding accounts, and maybe I let the kid grow up in an orphanage just like her mother.”
My blood ran cold. He knew. Marco had dug through the mansion’s background files the moment Vincent showed favor to us.
Sal raised his weapon, but Marco’s men fired first. A spray of bullets stitched across the concrete. Sal grunted in agony, falling backward with two rounds in his chest, his rifle clattering across the gravel toward the ledge.
Vincent instantly fired back, dropping one of Marco’s shooters instantly, but the sheer volume of suppressing fire forced him behind a concrete air-conditioning unit. He was pinned down, eighty feet from the idling helicopter, with only one clip remaining.
“It's over, Vincent!” Marco laughed, stepping forward, his pistol aimed directly at the corner where Vincent was trapped. “You're dying on a roof in Queens, protecting a maid and a stray!”
I was crouching behind an electrical junction box, clutching Emma against the cold brick wall. Five feet away from me lay Sal’s discarded assault rifle.
I had never fired a gun in my life. I had spent my youth washing dishes, folding linens, and scrubbing floorboards until my knuckles bled. I was terrified of violence, terrified of confrontation. But looking at Marco—the man who had grabbed my arm, insulted my child, and now aimed to slaughter the only person who remembered my mother—something ancient and feral snapped inside my chest.
“Emma,” I whispered, placing her behind the steel casing. “Stay flat. Don't move.”
While Marco took another arrogant step toward Vincent, keeping his sights locked on the concrete pillar, I lunged forward across the gravel.
My knees scraped raw against the stone, but I didn't feel the pain. I grabbed the cold steel barrel of Sal’s rifle, swung the heavy frame up against my shoulder, and disengaged the safety switch just like I had seen Sal do moments earlier.
“Hey!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Marco whipped his head around, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief as he saw a trembling housekeeper in a stained uniform aiming twenty pounds of military-grade hardware directly at his chest.
“What the—”
I didn't give him time to finish his sentence. I clamped my finger down on the trigger.
The rifle erupted in a chaotic burst of fire and recoil that nearly knocked me off my feet. Sparks ricocheted off the concrete, the deafening concussions tearing through the rooftop air. Two rounds struck the shooter beside Marco, sending him sprawling over the edge into the dark abyss below. Marco dove wildly behind a metal exhaust pipe, shrieking in terror as drywall and metal shrapnel showered over his designer suit.
Vincent seized the opening in a heartbeat. Pivoting from cover with lethal elegance, he fired two double-taps straight through Marco’s cover. A sickening thud followed, and Marco slumped out onto the open gravel, clutching his shattered shoulder and gasping for breath, completely disarmed.
The remaining mercenary dropped his weapon, throwing his hands in the air and falling to his knees in surrender.
Vincent didn't look at the defeated traitor. He sprinted straight toward me, his hands catching my shoulders just as the heavy rifle slipped from my exhausted, trembling fingers. He pulled me up, his eyes ablaze with fierce, undeniable pride.
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“You have your mother’s aim,” he shouted over the deafening helicopter engines. “Now get to the bird!”
He scooped Emma into his left arm, grabbed my hand with his right, and ran toward the spinning rotors. As the landing skids lifted off the rooftop and the skyline dropped beneath our feet, I watched the burning estate shrink into the distance. We had escaped the slaughter, but the war for the Caruso empire had only just begun.
