Chapter 6 - Blood on the Asphalt
The door of the sedan behind them opened, and Victor Castillo stepped out into the swirling snow. He wore a heavy camel-hair coat, his gold signet ring flashing under the streetlights as he casually adjusted his leather gloves. In his right hand, he held a sleek chrome pistol.
"Open the door, Lev!" Castillo’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker from one of the tactical vans. "You're a good wheelman, but you don't get paid enough to die for an illegitimate brat. Hand over the girl and Bennett’s daughter, and Moretti might even let you keep your pension!"
Lev loaded a fresh drum magazine into his weapon, his face grim and pale. "Signora, when I open my door, I will draw their fire toward the front van. You crawl out the passenger side, slide down the snow embankment toward the rocks. There is a boathouse fifty yards south. Hide there."
"You can't take all of them alone!" Isabella sobbed, holding Sophie with bruising intensity.
"Mr. Moretti told me to protect his daughter," Lev said simply, his grey eyes dead steady. "That means my life belongs to her tonight."
Before Isabella could scream, Lev kicked his door open, firing a devastating burst of automatic rounds toward Castillo's shooters. The night exploded into chaos. Gunfire rattled across the frozen concrete, muzzle flashes illuminating the falling snow like strobes of lightning.
Isabella didn't hesitate. Driven by pure maternal adrenaline, she kicked the opposite door open and rolled into the deep snowdrift on the side of the road. The icy powder burned her face and hands, but she wrapped her entire body around Sophie, shielding the infant from the freezing wind and the whistling bullets flying overhead.
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She scrambled down the slick rock embankment, sliding on the jagged limestone until she landed hard against the frozen sand near the lake shore. Pain shot through her ankle, sharp and hot, but she ignored it, limping desperately through the darkness toward the silhouette of the old wooden boathouse. Behind her, the sound of Lev’s weapon suddenly ceased, replaced by the heavy crunch of boots descending the snowy gravel.
"Come out, little mother," Castillo’s smooth voice drifted through the wind. "Alessandro isn't coming to save you. He's tied up at the estate, answering for crimes his father committed thirty years ago. Give me the baby, and I promise your death will be painless."
