Chapter 8 - THE BEAST UNCHAINED
The darkness was suffocating, punctuated only by the distant flashes of lightning illuminating the rain-streaked skylights. Gunfire erupted on the ground floor—the sharp, rapid staccato of suppressed automatic weapons clashing with heavy tactical shotguns.
"Landon! Report!" Gabriel spoke into his encrypted headset.
Static hissed through the earpiece, followed by Landon’s strained voice: "They breached the conservatory! It's Moretti's primary hit squad! We've pinned six of them in the foyer, but four hostiles broke off toward the master suite stairs! Gabriel, lock down the panic room!"
"Understood," Gabriel replied calmly.
He reached down to the armrest of his motorized chair to engage the electronic drive—but the auxiliary power surge had fried the chair’s computerized steering module. The chair was dead weight.
"The controls are fried," Gabriel cursed under his breath, his hands gripping the useless joystick.
Heavy, tactical boots pounded up the marble staircase outside our double doors.
"Maya, get into the reinforced closet behind the bookshelf," Gabriel commanded, drawing a matte-black Sig Sauer 9mm pistol from his inner jacket pocket and racking the slide with a clean, lethal click. "Now!"
"I'm not leaving you," I repeated, grabbing a heavy steel fire poker from the hearth and standing squarely at his side.
"You crazy girl..." Gabriel breathed, but there was no time for words.
The heavy oak doors burst open with a deafening crash.
Two masked operatives in black tactical gear stormed into the room, their submachine guns raised.
Crack! Crack!
Gabriel fired twice with terrifying, pinpoint accuracy. The lead gunman collapsed instantly to the floor, his weapon clattering away. The second gunman dove behind the mahogany credenza, firing a blind burst of automatic rounds across the room.
Wood splinters and plaster exploded through the air. A ricocheting slug grazed my shoulder, tearing through the fabric of my shirt and leaving a burning line of crimson against my skin.
I cried out, stumbling backward onto the Persian rug.
Gabriel saw the blood on my shoulder.
Something inside Gabriel Cross snapped. The restraint, the calculated calm, the months of bitter confinement—all of it dissolved into an incandescent, primal fury that shook the very foundations of the room.
"MAYA!" he roared.
Driven by pure, unfiltered adrenaline and a protective instinct that defied medical science, Gabriel Cross planted his hands on the armrests, his scarred muscles contracting with violent force.
His legs—dormant for six months, freed from the counterfeit poison—shook violently under the sudden immense load.
And then, he stood up.
He rose to his full, towering height of six-foot-three, a titan emerging from the shadows of his own ruin.
The second gunman peeked out from behind the credenza, his eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated terror as he saw the paralyzed mafia king standing on his own two feet, advancing like the angel of death.
Crack!
Gabriel fired a single shot through the credenza. The gunman slumped forward and did not move again.
Gabriel dropped the empty pistol, swayed on his trembling legs, and collapsed forward onto his knees right beside me. His large arms wrapped around me, pulling me fiercely against his broad, muscular chest.
"Maya... are you hit? Look at me!" his voice broke with an emotion he had never shown to another human being. His hands trembled as he examined the superficial graze on my shoulder.
"I'm okay," I gasped, looking up into his wild, fierce eyes in utter disbelief. "Gabriel... you're standing. You walked."
Gabriel looked down at his legs, then back at my face, a breathless, triumphant laugh escaping his throat in the dark.
Before either of us could speak, a third shadow stepped through the shattered doorway.
Anthony Moretti himself stood there, wearing a drenched trench coat, holding a loaded magnum revolver aimed directly at Gabriel’s head.
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"Touching scene," Moretti sneered, cocking the hammer. "A paralyzed dog standing up just in time to watch his empire burn."
***
