Chapter 5 - Fire on the Bay
""Get them to the panic room beneath the wine cellar,"" Jack commanded, his voice cold and commanding. He didn't blink. He didn't panic. He reached into a false wall behind his bookshelf and pulled out two heavy black handguns, cocking them with fluid muscle memory.
""Jack, no!"" I screamed, grabbing his forearm as alarms wailed across the estate. ""Don't leave us!""
""I’m not leaving you, Anna,"" Jack said, his hand briefly covering mine. His skin was warm and steady. ""I am standing between the wolves and my brother's family. Take Tyler. Do not open that steel door for anyone except Elena or me. Do you understand?""
I sprinted toward the guest suite. Tyler was already awake, sitting up in bed, crying as the sound of automatic rifle fire echoed across the marble corridors.
""Mommy! What's that loud noise?""
""Pack up, baby,"" I said, scooping him into my arms and throwing a heavy blanket over his shoulders. ""We’re playing a game of hide-and-seek. We have to be very quiet.""
Elena met us in the hall, her silver hair wild, guiding us through a hidden panel in the pantry that spiraled down into the deep limestone foundations of the mansion. The panic room was a subterranean vault reinforced with foot-thick blast doors and monitored by an array of security screens displaying the estate grounds.
On the monitors, absolute chaos reigned.
Flames flickered across the front lawn where a black truck had smashed through the iron gate. Men in dark tactical gear were trading gunfire with Jack's security detail. But in the center of the terrace, standing near the marble fountain, was Jack Romano.
He moved with chilling precision. He fired behind the cover of the stone balustrades, dropping intruders with calculated efficiency. Yet, for every attacker who fell, three more seemed to emerge from the darkness near the docks.
Then I saw him on the central monitor: Victor Corvo.
He was a thickset man with slicked-back silver hair, wearing an immaculate white linen suit that seemed obscene amidst the bloodshed. He held a customized shotgun, flanked by four hulking mercenaries.
Corvo barked an order, and two of his men fired shoulder-mounted tear gas canisters directly through the mansion’s French doors, blinding Jack’s remaining defenders.
""Jack..."" I gasped, pressing my hands against the cold monitor screen.
Through the haze of smoke, I watched a mercenary strike Jack from his blind spot with the butt of a rifle. Jack stumbled, dropping one of his weapons. Corvo stepped forward, driving a heavy boot into Jack's ribs, pinning the head of the Romano empire against the shattered edge of the marble fountain.
Corvo leaned down, his lips moving on the silent video feed. On the desk intercom, Jack's earpiece channel hissed to life, carrying Corvo’s mocking voice:
""Where is the boy, Jackie? Give me the key, or I will peel this island apart brick by brick, and you will watch me finish what I started with Leo.""
Jack spat blood onto the white stones. Even pinned to the ground, his eyes blazed with lethal defiance. ""You'll find him in hell, Victor.""
Tyler stood beside me, clutching my knees, looking at the screen. ""Mommy... Uncle Jack is hurting.""
Tears streamed down my cheeks, but as I looked down at the locket clutched in my fist, a fierce, primal fire ignited inside me. Two years of running. Two years of hiding in damp rooms, begging for minimum-wage shifts, flinching at every passing siren.
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Leo died running. I was not going to let Jack die defending us while I hid in a basement.
""Elena,"" I said, my voice dropping into an icy register I didn't know I possessed. ""Where does that secondary service tunnel lead?""
