Chapter 5 - The Breach
"Stay here! Do not open this door for anyone except me or Marco!" Vincent barked, pulling his weapon from his holster and throwing a tactical vest over his black shirt.
"Vincent, no!" Elise cried out, catching his arm. "They're coming here! It's a trap!"
"They won't get past the courtyard," Vincent said coldly, his face hardening back into the ruthless leader of the Caruso empire. He grabbed her face with one heavy hand, pulling her into a brief, hard kiss that tasted of iron and promise. "I will protect you. Both of you. Keep the girls quiet."
With that, Vincent stepped out of the safe room, and the heavy oak bookshelf slid back into place with a sickening, definitive thud, locking Elise and the twins inside once again.
Outside the bunker, the estate descended into absolute chaos.
The sound of heavy gunfire echoed through the high-ceilinged halls of the mansion. Julian Moretti, the ruthless head of the rival family, had launched a suicide assault on the Caruso estate, employing heavy weaponry and dozen of heavily armed mercenaries to breach the gates while Vincent’s main forces were distracted in the city.
Inside the safe room, Elise clutched Maisie and Rosie tightly against her chest on the leather sofa. The twins were sobbing violently, terrified by the muffled booms and the terrifying flashing red lights of the security system.
"Shh, shh, it's okay, my babies, it's okay," Elise hummed frantically, rocking them back and forth, tears streaming down her own face. She tried to sing the silly song she had made up weeks ago, but her voice cracked with terror.
On the surveillance monitors, she watched the carnage unfold in horrifying real-time.
She saw Marco leading the defense in the grand foyer, firing behind marble pillars as mercenaries pushed through the shattered front doors. She saw Vincent moving like a shadow through the corridors, lethal, precise, and uncompromising. Every shot he fired brought down an attacker. He was an unstoppable force of nature, driven by the instinct to protect the life behind the hidden door in his bedroom.
But then, Elise saw something that made her heart stop.
On camera three, which monitored the east wing's secondary stairwell, three mercenaries wearing black tactical gear had bypassed the main fighting in the foyer. They were moving swiftly up toward the master suite. Leading them was a tall man with a scarred face and a sneer—Julian Moretti himself.
He had a blueprint in his hands. He knew the layout of the mansion.
"No, no, no..." Elise gasped, watching the screen in horror.
Moretti reached the door of the master suite. He kicked it open, his men sweeping the room with automatic rifles. They didn't see Vincent or the guards. Moretti walked straight toward the massive oak bookshelf, a cruel, victorious smile spreading across his scarred face. He pulled an electronic breaching charge from his tactical vest and slapped it directly against the center of the hidden door mechanism.
They were going to blow the safe room open.
Elise’s mind raced with absolute panic. She looked at the two innocent four-month-old girls in her arms. If Moretti blew that door, they would be taken or killed. Vincent was trapped in the lower wing, fighting off the main force, unaware that his stronghold was about to be breached.
She couldn't just sit here and wait to be captured.
Elise looked around the safe room. On a side table lay an emergency security kit—a heavy tactical flashlight, a blinding flare launcher, and a master override remote for the estate’s automated fire-suppression system.
Her hands shaking violently, Elise set the twins down in the center of the soft rug, tucking them under a heavy blanket behind the sofa where they would be shielded from potential debris.
"Stay quiet, my sweet girls," she whispered, kissing each of their foreheads. "I'll be right back."
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Elise grabbed the flare launcher and the override remote. She approached the inner lock of the safe room door. She knew that if she opened it from the inside before the charge detonated, she might disrupt their plan—or she might walk straight into her death.
She took a deep breath, remembered the fierce look in Vincent’s eyes when he kissed her, and pressed the release button.
