Chapter 8 - The Breach at The Grandview
The sound of splintering mahogany echoed through the penthouse like a gunshot. The reinforced double doors gave way, crashing inward as heavy smoke grenades rolled across the pristine marble floor, instantly filling the office with a blinding, acrid white fog.
Instinct overrode fear. I dropped flat behind the heavy mahogany desk, dragging my heavy laptop down with me as a shield, my fingers desperately searching for the concealed desk alarm.
“Clear the left flank!” a harsh, gravelly voice barked through the smoke.
Footsteps rushed into the room—heavy, tactical, and disciplined. These weren't sloppy street thugs like Moretti’s men; these were professional mercenaries, outfitted in tactical gear and bearing suppressed submachine guns.
“She’s not at the desk!” another voice shouted.
I held my breath, pressing my back tightly against the wooden paneling. My heart thundered so violently against my ribs I was certain they could hear it over the ventilation hum. I needed a weapon, anything. My eyes scanned the floor and caught the heavy brass paperweight Dante had given me for our anniversary—a solid, weighty piece shaped like a crouching panther.
Slowly, silently, my fingers wrapped around its cold metal base.
A shadow loomed over the desk. A heavy combat boot stepped right beside my hand.
Without thinking, I swung upward with every ounce of strength left in my body, driving the solid brass panther square into the mercenary’s knee. A sharp crack echoed as the man collapsed with a muffled curse, his weapon clattering across the floor.
I scrambled backward, but a second operative lunged forward, grabbing the collar of my blouse and hauling me roughly to my feet. The cold steel barrel of a suppressed pistol pressed viciously against my cheek.
“Got the target,” the operative spoke into his comm-link. “Moving to the extraction—”
Bang.
The mercenary holding me went completely limp, his eyes widening in shock before he slumped dead to the floor. Standing in the blown-out threshold of the private elevator was Dante, his face carved from ice, his smoking weapon still raised. Behind him stood a dozen elite guards who immediately secured the perimeter.
Dante crossed the room in two terrifying strides, dropping to his knees beside me. His hands gripped my shoulders, his dark eyes frantically scanning my face for blood.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, his voice cracking slightly with a raw emotion he rarely displayed. “Did they touch you?”
“I’m okay,” I gasped, clutching his lapel for dear life as the adrenaline finally crashed. “I’m okay, Dante.”
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He pulled me into a fierce, suffocating embrace, burying his face in my hair. But as he looked up over my shoulder toward the shattered windows, the expression on his face turned into something truly demonic.
“They want a war?” Dante whispered into the smoke-filled air, his voice dripping with lethal promise. “I’ll give them an apocalypse.”
