Chapter 8 - The Price Of A Clean Slate
The foyer doors buckled with a deafening screech of ripping metal. Two flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the drifting snow outside the terrace windows. Patrick Miller stepped into the penthouse, accompanied by three armed mercenaries hired from the underbelly of the city's private security firms.
""Quite a family reunion, Moretti!"" Miller barked, raising a heavy assault rifle. ""You cost me forty million dollars and my life's work today. You think a few dead brothers and an illegitimate brat are worth dying for?""
Vincent didn't answer with words.
He fired two rapid shots, catching the lead mercenary in the shoulder and forcing the second to dive behind the marble kitchen island. Gunfire shattered the silence of the penthouse, the deafening cracks echoing off the glass walls as expensive artwork and vintage crystal exploded into millions of flying shards.
""Get down, Claire!"" Vincent roared, tackling me behind the reinforced steel pillar of the central fireplace.
Bullets chewed through the plaster above our heads, showering us in white dust. I covered my ears, the concussive force rattling my teeth. Vincent leaned around the corner, returning fire with lethal precision, dropping another mercenary who attempted to flank our position.
But Miller was relentless. He sprayed the corridor leading to the bedrooms, advancing with heavy, deliberate boots. ""Give me the kid, Vincent! Give me the boy and the patent signatures from your little wife, and maybe I let her walk out of here alive!""
Vincent checked his magazine. Two rounds left.
He looked at me in the dim glow of the city lights reflecting off the snow outside. His face was covered in drywall dust, his suit torn, blood dripping from a deep graze along his temple.
""I love you, Claire,"" he whispered softly, his eyes completely clear for the first time in five years. ""I'm sorry it took losing everything for me to have the courage to say it.""
Before I could grab his sleeve, Vincent broke cover.
He sprinted toward the terrace doors, drawing Miller’s fire entirely away from my hiding spot. ""Looking for me, Patrick?"" he bellowed, firing his remaining rounds straight into Miller’s tactical vest.
The bullets staggered Miller backward, but the heavy armor absorbed the impact. Miller snarled, raising his weapon to execute Vincent at point-blank range.
I didn't think. I didn't strategize.
I grabbed the heavy, solid brass sculpture from the side table beside the fireplace, charged across the shattered glass in my bare feet, and swung it with all the strength in my body directly into the side of Miller’s skull.
The impact made a sickening crack. Miller stumbled sideways, his rifle clattering across the slick floor toward the terrace edge. Vincent surged forward like a wounded beast, tackling Miller through the sliding glass terrace doors out into the freezing storm.
The two men tumbled across the snow-covered terrace, forty-five stories above the frozen streets of Chicago. Miller clawed for a combat knife in his boot, but Vincent grabbed his wrist, twisting it violently until the bone snapped. With a final, desperate heave, Vincent drove Miller against the low glass balustrade, disarming him completely and pressing his forearm against Miller’s throat until the man’s eyes rolled back and he went completely limp in the snow.
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Sirens wailed in the distance—dozens of them, cutting through the blizzard from Michigan Avenue below.
Vincent collapsed onto the snowy deck, his breath coming in ragged gasps, clutching his bleeding side. I walked out onto the terrace through the shattered glass, the freezing wind whipping my hair across my face, and knelt beside him.
