Chapter 7 - The Final Stand
Through the narrow glass observation port of the heavy vault door, I watched the subterranean hallway outside.
Smoke was drifting through the air, smelling sulfurous and hot.
The heavy footsteps of the mercenary reached the corridor. He was a massive man, wearing a ballistic helmet, carrying a steel-cased explosive charge. He knelt beside Column Four, less than twenty feet from our vault door, and began attaching the magnetic clamps to the concrete structure.
"He's going to blow it," I whispered, my hands trembling as I held Emma behind me.
Suddenly, a shadow dropped from the air duct above the mercenary.
Alessandro hit the floor with a heavy thud, driving the mercenary to the ground before he could press the arming switch on the detonator.
The two men engaged in a brutal, hand-to-hand fight against the stone wall. The mercenary was larger, but Alessandro fought with a terrifying, primal ferocity—the ferocity of a man defending everything he loved.
BANG.
A gun discharged in the narrow space.
Alessandro gasped, stumbling back against Column Four, his hand immediately flying to his left shoulder. Blood oozed through his fingers, staining his black tactical vest.
"Alessandro!" I screamed against the glass, pounding my fists against the reinforced steel door.
The mercenary laughed, a sickening, raspy sound behind his ballistic mask. He raised his sidearm, aiming it directly at Alessandro’s chest. "The Phantom sends his regards, Moretti."
"Marco! Open the door!" I yelled, turning to the lieutenant.
"I can't!" Marco gritted out, his hands hovering over the manual wheel. "If I open it, he shoots us all!"
"OPEN THE DOOR!" I roared with a voice I didn't know I possessed.
I grabbed a heavy steel oxygen canister from the wall rack, pushed past Marco, and slammed the manual release wheel with all my strength.
The heavy steel vault door swung open with a pneumatic hiss.
Before the mercenary could pull the trigger on Alessandro, I charged out of the vault like a madwoman, swinging the twenty-pound steel oxygen canister with every ounce of motherly rage inside my body.
CRACK.
The heavy metal cylinder smashed directly into the side of the mercenary's ballistic helmet. The impact sounded like a baseball bat hitting a watermelon.
The man collapsed sideways onto the concrete floor, his gun skidding across the hallway, completely unconscious.
I dropped the heavy canister, my chest heaving, my hands shaking violently.
Alessandro slumped against the column, staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. Blood was running down his arm, but he looked at me as if he had just witnessed a miracle.
"Clara..." he rasped, a faint, breathless smile touching his lips. "You... you hit him with an oxygen tank."
"You were going to get shot, you idiot!" I sobbed, dropping to my knees beside him, immediately ripping off my sleeve to press against his bleeding shoulder wound. "You told me no one was going to make us cry again!"
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Alessandro reached out with his uninjured arm, wrapping it tightly around my waist, pulling me against his warm, broad chest.
"I stand corrected," he whispered into my hair, his heart beating strong and steady beneath my cheek. "You truly are the most dangerous woman in Milan."
