Chapter 7 - The Assault on Sunset Park
The reunion was shattered forty seconds later.
Outside in the alleyway, a heavy glass window shattered with a violent spray of dangerous shards.
A black tactical flashbang grenade bounced across the hallway floor outside Eleanor’s apartment, exploding with a blinding flash and a deafening, metallic CRACK.
The door frame splintered instantly as two heavy steel boots kicked the lock inward.
“DOWN!” Dominic roared.
In a fraction of a second, the wounded, grieving father vanished. The cold, lethal head of the Moretti empire returned.
Dominic tucked Anna firmly under his left arm, using his broad body as an impenetrable shield, and dove across the kitchen floor behind the heavy iron radiator just as a hail of submachine-gun fire ripped through the wooden door, shredding the plaster walls and shattering every dish in the sink.
Eleanor screamed, diving beneath the sturdy oak kitchen table.
“Victor!” Dominic shouted into his collar mic, his voice a lethal rasp. “BREACH! WE HAVE IMPACT IN THE KITCHEN!”
From the stairwell outside, heavy gunfire erupted instantly. Victor and the four Moretti security guards, who had been positioning themselves on the roof, descended like a hammer upon the four masked hitmen in the corridor.
The dark hallway exploded into chaos—the sharp, deafening chatter of suppressed automatic rifles, the smell of cordite and burnt gunpowder filling the narrow apartment building.
Inside the kitchen, Dominic laid Anna down behind the cast-iron stove, cupping her face in his hands. “Stay down, sweetheart! Cover your ears! Look at me—look right at my eyes!”
Anna was terrified, her tiny body shaking violently, but she locked her eyes onto Dominic’s. She didn't scream. She clamped her hands over her ears and nodded.
Dominic drew a heavy dark custom pistol from his shoulder holster. He checked the chamber with a flick of his thumb, stepped out from behind the stove, and aimed through the smoke-filled doorway.
A masked shooter stepped into the frame, raising his rifle. Dominic fired two rapid shots. The intruder collapsed backward into the hall.
A second later, Victor stepped through the ruined doorway, his weapon lowered, his suit jacket splattered with blood. “CLEAR! THE HALLWAY IS CLEAR!”
Dominic didn't waste a second. He scooped Anna back into his arms, then reached down with his left hand, pulling Eleanor up from beneath the table. “Can you walk?”
“I can walk,” Eleanor gasped, her face pale, but her eyes burning with fierce determination.
“Victor, get Eleanor to the armored Suburban,” Dominic commanded, his voice a terrifying drumbeat of authority. “We are going to the estate. Call the entire security detail. I want fifty men on the perimeter by the time we hit the expressway.”
“Who sent them, Boss?” Victor asked, reloading his magazine.
May you like
Dominic stepped over the fallen hitman in the doorway, pausing to glance down at the custom red tattoo etched onto the dead man’s wrist—the crest of his brother Julian’s private security firm.
Dominic’s eyes turned into absolute ice. “My brother,” Dominic whispered. “My brother tried to kill my child twice.”
