Chapter 3 - The Breach
"Down! Get down!"
The officer in the kitchen yelled, her voice instantly drowned out by the deafening roar of gunfire. Pop-pop-pop. The sound was high-pitched, terrifyingly loud in the confined space of my home.
Detective Vance drew her weapon in a single fluid motion, shoving me flat onto the hardwood floor. "Stay down! Don't move!"
I lay there, the dust and the smell of gunpowder filling my nose. My mind screamed one name: Lily. Leo. I couldn't care about my own life. I dragged myself across the floor, scraping my knees, ignoring Vance’s shouts to stay put.
In the kitchen, the sliding glass door was shattered into a million sparkling diamonds. A man dressed in black tactical gear was trying to scramble through the frame, but the female officer had her weapon drawn, firing two rounds that sent him tumbling backward into my small garden patch.
"They're here!" she yelled, her arm bleeding from a glass shard. "We need backup now!"
I reached the kitchen island and pulled Lily and Leo into my arms. They were sobbing, terrified by the noise. Leo was hyperventilating, his tiny chest heaving.
"I've got you, I've got you," I whispered, burying my face in Lily's hair.
"They aren't police," Vance said, rushing into the kitchen, her eyes darting to the backyard. "They’re hitmen. They didn't come to negotiate. They came to wipe the slate clean."
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The realization was terrifying. If the Moretti syndicate was willing to attack a house surrounded by police cars, they were desperate. Rachel hadn't just stolen money; she had stolen a secret they couldn't afford to let leave Chicago.
Vance grabbed my arm, pulling me up. "We can't wait for backup. My cruiser is in the driveway. We're leaving through the front, right now."
