Chapter 7 - The Garden Defense
The snow outside was deafening, the wind whipping freezing ice across the stone courtyard.
Gunfire shattered the quiet night—suppressed automatic rounds chipping away at the stone pillars of the north gazebo.
Marcus Cole’s mercenaries had already breached the garden wall, moving in tactical fireteams toward the cottage.
I took cover behind a massive granite fountain, raising my weapon and firing three precise shots that dropped the lead mercenary advancing toward the cottage porch.
Return fire hammered against the stone behind me, sending icy marble dust into the air.
“Alessandro!” a voice called out from the cottage porch.
I turned my head.
Sophia stood inside the cottage doorway. She wasn't hiding. She was holding a heavy bronze fireplace poker in her right hand, her body positioned firmly in front of the bedroom where Emma was sleeping.
“Sophia! Get down!” I shouted, firing twice more to pin down two approaching shooters near the rose garden.
Suddenly, a massive black shape exploded past me through the open door of the glass conservatory.
It was Bruno.
Despite his bandaged left hip, the one-hundred-and-fifty-eight-pound Cane Corso charged through the deep snow like a terrifying phantom of vengeance.
He lunged through the freezing darkness, tackling a mercenary who was raising his rifle toward the cottage porch. The man let out a bloodcurdling shriek as Bruno disarmed him in a fraction of a second, pinning him into the snow drifts.
The remaining mercenaries panicked, throwing their focus onto the massive beast charging through their ranks.
That distraction was all my tactical security team needed.
Marco and ten elite Moretti guards flanked the garden from both sides, opening heavy, devastating crossfire that completely eliminated Marcus Cole’s strike force within four minutes.
Silence returned to the snowbound garden, broken only by the howling wind and the heavy breathing of my men.
I sprinted up the cottage steps, reaching out to grab Sophia’s shoulders.
“Are you hurt?” I asked frantically, my eyes scanning her face, my chest heaving.
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“I’m fine,” Sophia breathed, dropping the bronze poker. She looked at me, her eyes burning with pure, fierce emotion, and without warning, she threw her arms around my neck, holding onto me tightly. “I was so scared for you.”
I wrapped my heavy arms around her waist, holding her close against my chest, burying my face in her soft, fragrant hair as the snow fell around us.
