Chapter 6 - NIGHT OF THE WOLVES
Red emergency lights flashed violently down the long corridors of the manor.
Sirens shrieked through the night, echoing off the stone walls like screaming demons.
Claire reacted instantly. She threw off Lucian’s blanket, pulled Julian and Leo out of their beds in one swift motion, and gathered all three terrified boys toward the center of the room.
“Claire! What’s happening?!” Julian yelled over the deafening sirens.
“Stay behind me!” Claire ordered, her voice cutting through the panic with absolute, razor-sharp authority.
The heavy double doors of the nursery flew open.
Gabriel rushed into the room. He was dressed in black tactical gear, a heavy Kevlar vest strapped across his chest, carrying a silenced automatic rifle in his hands. His gray eyes were dark with lethal, absolute focus.
“Brandt!” Gabriel barked over his shoulder as Henry rushed in behind him, holding a small silver hand-gun with surprisingly steady hands. “Take the boys to the vault behind the study!”
“What about the perimeter?!” Henry yelled back over the sirens.
“Marco cut the power to the western security grid,” Gabriel spat, his jaw tight as iron. “He brought twelve mercenaries from the New York Syndicate through the rear gardens. They’re inside the house.”
Claire’s blood turned to fire.
Marco. The snake had finally struck. He had staged an internal coup while the estate was isolated in the storm.
Gabriel stepped close to Claire, his massive frame shielding her and the boys from the doorway. He looked into her eyes, his expression fierce, raw, and completely exposed.
“Take my sons, Claire,” Gabriel said, his deep voice carrying a terrifying, beautiful weight. “The vault key is around my neck. If I don't come down to open it by morning... take the boys through the escape tunnel to the docks. Henry knows the way.”
Claire reached out, grabbing the thick collar of his tactical vest, pulling him down until their faces were inches apart.
“You listen to me, Gabriel Rinaldi,” Claire said, her brown eyes blazing with unbreakable fury. “You are not dying tonight. You have four sons—three in this room and one out there somewhere in the world who needs his father to find him. You survive this fight, do you hear me? You survive it and come back to this room!”
Gabriel stared at her. The ruthless mob boss, faced with the fiery, fierce widow from Hartford who refused to let him surrender to death.
A slow, dark, lethal smile touched the corner of Gabriel’s lips.
“I’ll hold you to that contract, Ms. Beaumont,” Gabriel whispered.
He reached around his neck, unhooked a heavy silver key on a steel chain, and pressed it into her palm. Then, he turned around, raised his rifle, and charged out into the dark corridor, firing three precise shots as the first wave of mercenaries reached the top of the stairs.
“Move! Now!” Henry yelled, ushering them toward the secret passage behind the library.
Claire grabbed Rosie, who was crying softly, tucked her under one arm, grabbed Lucian and Leo by their hands, and commanded Julian to stay right on their heels.
They sprinted down the narrow, hidden wooden stairs built into the walls of the estate.
Shouts, glass shattering, and the deafening roar of automatic gunfire echoed above them, shaking the old plaster of the mansion.
They reached the heavy steel vault door hidden behind a fake bookcase in Gabriel’s private study. Henry frantically entered a six-digit code on the digital keypad, while Claire inserted the heavy silver key into the mechanical lock and turned it with all her strength.
The heavy vault door hissed as the pressure seals released, swinging open to reveal a carpeted, well-lit panic room equipped with monitors, food supplies, and communications gear.
“Get inside!” Henry urged, pushing the children through.
Suddenly, a cold voice spoke from the shadows of the library.
“Going somewhere, Henry?”
Marco stepped out from behind a velvet curtain, holding a silver-plated pistol aimed directly at Henry Brandt’s chest. Blood was smeared across Marco’s cheek, his hair wild, his eyes burning with insane, manic triumph.
“Marco...” Henry breathed, stepping back slowly, keeping himself between Marco and the open vault door. “This is madness. The Commission will execute you for this.”
“The Commission gave me the green light an hour ago!” Marco sneered, stepping closer. “Gabriel is weak! He’s spent millions looking for a dead boy in South America while our territory falls apart! Tonight, I take the empire... and I clean up the trash.”
Marco raised his gun, aiming directly at Henry’s head.
Claire didn't think.
She grabbed a heavy, antique bronze globe standing on a mahogany pedestal near the vault door and hurled it with every ounce of strength in her body.
CRACK!
The heavy bronze globe struck Marco squarely across the side of his face.
Marco let out a bloody yell, his gun discharging wild into the ceiling as he stumbled backward, crashing into a glass display cabinet.
“Get in!” Claire screamed, grabbing Henry by his suit jacket and hauling the old lawyer backward into the panic room.
Claire slammed her hand onto the internal lock button.
The heavy steel vault door began to slide shut on its hydraulic tracks.
Marco scrambled up from the glass debris, blood pouring from his shattered nose, lunging toward the shrinking gap with his gun raised.
“You bitch!” Marco screamed, thrusting his gun through the remaining six-inch gap, aiming wildly at Claire’s face.
Lucian jumped forward from behind Claire, holding a heavy steel fire extinguisher he had grabbed from the vault wall, and slammed it down onto Marco’s outstretched wrist with savage, fury-driven precision.
BAM!
Marco shrieked in agony, dropping the gun into the vault as the heavy steel door clicked into place with a sound like thunder, sealing the pressure lock tight.
Silence descended inside the vault.
Outside, the thick steel walls muffled the remaining sounds of gunfire.
Lucian stood over the fallen pistol, panting heavily, his small hands shaking violently, the scar above his left eyebrow red and pulsing in the stark LED lights of the panic room.
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Claire dropped to her knees, pulling all four children—Lucian, Julian, Leo, and Rosie—into a tight, fierce embrace, holding them against her as tears finally streamed down her face.
“We’re safe,” Claire whispered, kissing the tops of their dark heads. “We’re safe now.”
