Chapter 4 - Shadows Beneath the Empire
The bullet had passed clean through my shoulder blade, missing the artery by less than an inch. Shock numbed the agony, replaced by a surge of pure adrenaline that turned my vision red.
"Elena, crawl under the service counter! Protect my mother!" I ordered through gritted teeth, pushing the trembling girl into the recessed alcove of the wet bar.
Dante advanced, firing two more rounds that splintered the oak pillar above my head. "You're dead, Dominic! The guards outside belong to me! I paid off your security detail an hour ago. No one is coming to save you!"
As if on cue, heavy tactical boots echoed down the long entrance corridor. Four of my private security contractors—men I had paid six-figure salaries to protect my family—stepped into the drawing room. Their carbines were drawn, but their cold eyes locked onto me, not Dante.
"Clean this mess up," Dante barked at them, clutching his crushed throat. "Execute Dominic and the old woman. Put two in the maid's head. We make it look like a rival syndicate hit."
The lead contractor, a former mercenary named Cross, raised his weapon toward my forehead. "Nothing personal, Mr. Vance. Dante pays in untraceable offshore crypto."
"You should have asked for cash in advance, Cross," I whispered coldly.
Before Cross could squeeze his trigger, the towering French doors leading to the courtyard garden shattered inward with the force of a battering ram. Flashbang grenades bounced across the hardwood, detonating with concussive, blinding white fire. The mercenaries cried out, clutching their ears as the shockwave threw them off balance.
Through the smoke and shattered glass charged a dozen men clad in unmarked black body armor. These weren't corporate security contractors. These were the Vance family's Iron Vanguard—veterans who had served my father for thirty years, led by my father's old enforcer, Uncle Leo.
"Dominic! Get down!" Leo's gravelly roar echoed over the chaos.
Submachine gun fire erupted in a relentless, synchronized rhythm. The traitorous contractors dropped like lead weights, their bodies riddled before they could even level their rifles. Dante let out a wild scream of panic, grabbing Vanessa by the arm and dragging her backward through the service kitchen toward the underground tunnel network beneath the wine cellar.
"Hold your fire! Sophia is on the floor!" Leo bellowed, stepping over the fallen mercenaries and sliding down beside me. His weathered face was lined with fierce loyalty as he pressed a field dressing against my bleeding shoulder. "The live-stream hit our secure network, kid. Elena’s broadcast reached every loyal captain in Queens and Brooklyn. The whole family knows."
"My mother..." I choked out, ignoring the stabbing fire in my arm.
"She’s breathing. Leo’s men have her," he assured me, helping me to my feet.
Two Vanguard medics were already kneeling over my mother, stabilizing her neck and administering oxygen. Sophia reached out with trembling, bruised fingers, catching the hem of my ruined dress shirt.
"Dominic..." she wept softly, her eyes clear despite the swelling. "Your father... they murdered him. Don't let them escape."
"They won't leave this island alive, Mama," I swore, kissing her forehead.
May you like
I picked up Cross’s fallen tactical rifle, racked the bolt, and turned toward the dark stairwell leading into the underground tunnels.
"Leo, lock down every bridge, ferry, and tunnel out of Long Island," I ordered, my voice dropping to a low, lethal hum that made even the battle-hardened soldiers shudder. "I am hunting them myself."
