Chapter 6 - The War for the Ports
For three days, the Castellano estate felt like a command center in the middle of a mobilization. Men in tailored suits arrived at all hours, carrying heavy leather briefcases and legal files. The library downstairs was filled with the low hum of voices planning a corporate execution.
Hollis stayed on the upper level, spending her time with Wynn and Posy. She watched as Wynn transformed from the terrified, freezing girl in the alley into a sharp, articulate young woman who possessed the same steel core as her brother.
"Sully’s going to strip Victor of everything," Wynn told Hollis one afternoon while they were helping Posy build a fort out of sofa cushions in the sunroom. "The probate court validated the original will this morning. Victor’s title as chief operating officer of the port authority has been legally suspended pending a federal audit."
"Is that why there are so many guards outside?" Hollis asked, looking through the window at the armed men patrolling the snow-covered grounds.
"Victor is cornered," Wynn said, her eyes turning dark, reflecting her brother's severe discipline. "When a man like Victor loses his money and his title, he doesn't go quietly to jail. He tries to burn down the house before he leaves."
That night, the house went dark.
It wasn't a power failure from the storm. The security lights across the compound died simultaneously at 2:14 AM.
Hollis woke instantly, her instincts as a mother screaming that something was wrong. She bolted from her bed, rushing to Posy’s small adjoining room. She picked up her daughter just as the heavy glass of the sunroom downstairs shattered into thousands of pieces.
Alarms didn't sound—the wires had been cut—but the silence of the mansion was immediately shattered by the sharp, deafening cracks of gunfire.
"Mama!" Posy cried, burying her face in Hollis’s neck.
"Shh, baby, I’ve got you," Hollis whispered, backing into the deepest corner of the bedroom wardrobe, exactly as she had done in her old apartment.
Outside the bedroom door, heavy footsteps sprinted down the corridor. A sudden blast from a shotgun tore through the wooden paneling of the hallway, followed by a grunt of pain and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
"Find the girl!" a voice shouted from the stairs. "Victor wants both of them! The sister and the maid!"
Hollis clutched Posy tighter, her eyes locking onto the bedroom door. She had no weapon, no way to defend them against armed mercenaries. She looked around the dark room, her heart hammering, looking for anything she could use. She grabbed a heavy brass candlestick from the nightstand, holding it tight in her hand, her knuckles turning white.
The bedroom door handle jiggled.
The lock groaned.
Hollis stood in the center of the dark room, her body positioned between the door and her daughter's hiding place. She raised the brass candlestick, prepared to strike, prepared to die if it meant giving Posy a chance to run.
The door burst open.
A man in a tactical vest and a black ski mask stepped into the room, a submachine gun raised. The light from the hallway caught the cold steel of the barrel.
Before he could see Hollis in the dark, a massive hand reached out from the corridor, caught the man by the collar of his vest, and threw him backward out of the room with terrifying force.
Sullivan Castellano stepped into the doorway. He wasn't wearing his coat or his silk scarf. He wore a simple black dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up, revealing muscular forearms covered in fresh soot and blood. In his right hand, he carried a heavy, customized silver pistol. His eyes were pure, uncut frost, shining in the darkness like a pair of winter stars.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded, his voice low, raspy from the smoke of a flashbang grenade that had gone off downstairs.
"No," Hollis gasped, her hands shaking so hard the brass candlestick clattered to the floor. "We’re okay. Is Wynn—"
"Wynn is in the vault with Marcus," Sullivan said, stepping closer, his presence immediately filling the room with an absolute, unyielding security. "Victor sent twelve men through the lake gate. He thought he could catch me sleeping. He forgot that I don't sleep when my family is threatened."
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He walked over to Hollis, his hand reaching out to touch her arm, his fingers warm against her cold skin. The touch was brief, but it carried an electric intensity that made Hollis’s breath hitch.
"Stay here," Sullivan ordered softly, looking down at Posy, who was peeking out from behind the bed sheets. "The estate is secure now. My men are clearing the perimeter. The war is over, Hollis. Tomorrow, I finish this."
