Chapter 8 - The Siege of the Lake
Danger, however, dies hard in the underworld of the Midwest.
Though Arthur Sterling was behind iron bars in a Chicago federal detention center, his former business partners in the Chicago Syndicate—men who stood to lose tens of millions of dollars due to the seized shipping assets—were not willing to go down quietly.
On a moonless Thursday night in late March, a high-speed black boat cut through the dark waters of Lake Geneva, its engine muffled, heading directly toward the private dock of the Romano estate.
Evelyn was asleep in her master suite when Titan suddenly jumped onto her bed, letting out a sharp, urgent growl that woke her instantly.
"Titan? What is it?" she whispered, sitting up in the dark.
The emergency sirens on the estate property didn't sound—the main power lines to the house had been cut from the outside.
Suddenly, the glass windows of her balcony shattered inward in a shower of deadly shards.
Two men in black tactical gear and night-vision goggles kicked through the broken frame, raising silenced submachine guns toward the bed.
Titan lunged through the dark like an iron missile.
He hit the lead intruder squarely in the chest, his broad jaws snapping shut around the man’s tactical vest, crashing him through the drywall into the corridor. The second intruder swung his weapon toward the dog, but before he could pull the trigger, a loud shot echoed from the doorway.
BANG.
The intruder collapsed onto the hardwood floor, his weapon spinning across the room.
Gabriel stood in the doorway wearing a dark shirt and grey trousers, holding a heavy tactical sidearm, his face a terrifying mask of rage.
"Evelyn! Down!" he shouted, rushing into the room, pulling her clean off the bed into his arms, shielding her body with his broad frame as more gunfire erupted from the grand hallway below.
"They breached the dock gate!" Victor’s voice roared from the stairs, accompanied by the loud, rhythmic cracks of shotgun fire. "It's the Syndicate enforcers! They came for the hard drives in the archive!"
Gabriel pulled Evelyn behind the heavy mahogany wardrobe, his eyes burning into hers in the dark. "Take Titan and go down the service stairs to the cellar vault. Lock the iron door from the inside."
"No!" Evelyn cried, grabbing his lapels with both hands. "I'm not leaving you!"
"Listen to me, Evelyn!" Gabriel barked, grabbing her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. "The cellar door is reinforced titanium. They cannot break it. I need you safe! If anything happens to you... nothing in this world matters!"
Before she could answer, he leaned down and pressed his lips firmly against hers—a deep, fierce, desperate kiss that tasted of salt, rain, and iron determination.
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"Go!" he commanded, pushing her toward the hidden hallway door.
Evelyn grabbed Titan’s thick collar, wiping a tear from her eye, and sprinted down the narrow service stairs into the dark foundations of the mansion.
