Chapter 5 - Blood in the Ballroom
The first gunfire shattered the grand stained-glass window above the foyer, sending a cascade of multicolored crystal shards raining down over the white marble floor.
“Down!” Dominic roared.
With preternatural speed for a man of his size, Dominic lunged forward, throwing his heavy frame over Grace and Lily just as a volley of high-caliber rounds chewed into the mahogany table inches from where they stood.
Chaos erupted.
The remaining high-society guests scrambled in blind panic, screaming as they trampled over one another toward the service exits. Aldermen, judges, and investors crawled across the sticky frosting and shattered champagne flutes, abandoning their dignity, their alliances, and their expensive shoes in a desperate scramble for survival.
“Mason! Secure the perimeter!” Dominic shouted over the deafening roar of automatic gunfire.
Mason didn't hesitate. Pulling a heavy, suppressed submachine gun from a tactical holster hidden beneath the skirt of the wedding cake table, Mason rolled across the floor and returned fire with cold, mechanical precision.
Thip-thip-thip.
Two of the tactical enforcers stationed on the balcony dropped instantly, tumbling over the wrought-iron railing to crash hard onto the floor below.
Adrian Cross scrambled backward, crawling on his hands and knees toward the side exit, clutching a leather briefcase containing offshore bank codes and syndicate transfer ledgers.
“Going somewhere, counselor?”
Adrian froze. He looked up to find Dominic standing over him, towering through the drifting cordite smoke like an executioner. The syndicate boss’s tuxedo jacket was torn at the shoulder, a shallow graze bleeding dark red across his white shirt, but his eyes were burning with an absolute, terrifying clarity.
“Dom—listen to me—I was coerced!” Adrian stammered, raising his hands in frantic surrender, his expensive lawyer persona completely dissolved into a shivering coward. “Serena’s family... they threatened to expose my offshore accounts! I had no choice!”
Dominic looked down at him with utter contempt. “You had a choice every time you signed a false affidavit. You had a choice every time you lied to my face about my wife.”
Adrian reached desperately into his jacket for a hidden backup pistol—a tiny, silver-plated derringer designed for a desperate last stand.
He never cleared the leather.
Dominic’s boot came down with crushing force on Adrian’s wrist, snapping the bone with a sickening crunch. Adrian shrieked in agony, dropping the weapon as Mason stepped over and slammed the lawyer’s face hard into the marble floor, rendering him unconscious in a single, fluid motion.
On the other side of the ballroom, Serena Waverly was sprinting toward the private service elevators, her ivory silk gown bunched up around her thighs, a diamond-encrusted pistol clutched in her trembling right hand.
“You won’t take me, you bastard!” Serena screamed, pressing the elevator call button frantically as the doors remained locked on lockdown mode.
She turned around, raising the pistol to fire at Dominic, who was walking toward her across the smoking ruins of the wedding decor.
Before she could pull the trigger, a small, dark object sailed through the air, bouncing off her shoulder.
Serena flinched, firing wild into the ceiling, and looked down.
It was Lily’s cracked Bluetooth speaker.
Blinking in confusion, Serena looked up just in time to see nine-year-old Lily charging straight at her like a furious little wildfire, lowering her shoulder and driving her full weight directly into Serena’s knees.
With a sharp cry, Serena’s legs buckled. She tumbled backward, her head striking the marble floor with a dull, heavy thud. The diamond pistol flew from her hand, skittering across the floor and coming to rest near Dominic’s shoe.
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Dominic walked over, nudged the pistol away with the toe of his shoe, and looked down at Serena as she groaned in pain, clutching her bruised head.
The room grew quiet, save for the crackling of a minor electrical fire near the ruined floral arrangements and the distant wail of police sirens echoing up from the Lake Forest drive.
