Chapter 4 - The Breach
The attack came at 2:14 AM on a moonless Tuesday.
There was no warning. No screech of tires at the front gates. Just the sudden, muffled thud of a silenced explosive charge blowing the reinforced service door at the rear of the west wing.
Jumping out of a deep sleep, Vincent was out of bed before the second echo had even faded. He slipped his custom Sig Sauer from the bedside holster, his movements fluid and automatic.
“Stay in the room,” he told Claire, who had bolted upright, her eyes wide with terror in the dim light.
“Sophia—!” she gasped.
“She’s in the adjoining room. I’ve already locked the security barrier,” Vincent said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He pulled open the suite door and vanished into the dark corridor.
The estate’s automated security alarms screamed to life—a low, pulsing red strobe light flashing through the vaulted hallways.
Vincent moved like a ghost through the shadows of the second-floor gallery. Down below, in the ground-floor corridor near the kitchens, the sharp pfft-pfft of silenced automatic weapons echoed through the manor. Rossi’s men had breached the perimeter using thermite charges on the service elevator shaft.
Idiots, Vincent thought coldly. They think they can take a fortress from the inside.
He raised his weapon just as a shadow rounded the corner of the grand staircase.
Bang.
The intruder dropped instantly, spinning down the marble steps before coming to a rest against the pedestal of a marble bust.
Three more men appeared from the east wing corridor, weapons raised. Vincent ducked behind a massive oak pillar as a storm of bullets chewed splinters out of the woodwork. He returned fire with deadly, surgical precision—two shots, two drops.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the upper east wing—directly toward Claire and Sophia’s suite.
Vincent’s heart slammed against his ribs. A cold wave of panic—the first he had felt in a decade—threatened to break his focus.
“Viktor!” Vincent shouted into his comm-link.
“Got the front courtyard secured, boss!” Viktor’s gravelly voice roared back over the static. “We got three trying to climb the rear trellis near the nursery!”
“They’re at the east wing!” Vincent barked, sprinting down the hallway with reckless speed. “Clear every hallway between here and the master suite!”
He rounded the corner just in time to see two men in black tactical gear kicking open the reinforced oak door of Claire’s suite.
“Hey!” Vincent roared.
Both men spun around. The first raised a submachine gun—
Vincent fired first. The slug caught the man square in the chest, hurling him backward against the wall. The second man lunged for the doorway, diving inside.
Vincent vaulted down the hall, charging into the suite.
Inside, the bedroom was a disaster of overturned furniture and shattered glass. Claire stood in front of the adjoining door to Sophia’s room, a heavy brass fireplace poker clutched in her hands like a spear, her face pale as paper but her eyes blazing with absolute, maternal fury.
On the floor before her, the second intruder lay motionless, a massive gash across his temple where Claire had apparently introduced the poker to his skull before he could even raise his weapon.
Vincent lowered his gun slowly, staring at her in stunned silence.
Claire dropped the poker. It clattered loudly against the hardwood floor. Her whole body began to tremble violently, the adrenaline crash finally hitting her all at once.
“Is... is he dead?” she whispered, her voice cracking.
Vincent stepped over the body and pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest so hard she could barely breathe.
“He’s dead,” Vincent murmured into her hair, his own chest heaving as he kissed the top of her head. “You... you hit him with a fireplace poker?”
“He was going to my daughter’s room,” Claire choked out, tears finally breaking free as she gripped the back of his shirt. “Nobody gets to my daughter.”
“Mom?”
A small, frightened voice came from the doorway of the adjoining room. Sophia stood rubbing her eyes, clutching her stuffed rabbit, looking at the chaos with wide, trembling eyes.
Before Vincent could move, Claire broke from his embrace, rushed into the room, and scooped Sophia up into her arms, burying the little girl’s face against her shoulder so she wouldn't see the body on the floor.
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“It’s okay, baby,” Claire sobbed softly, rocking her back and forth. “Mom’s here. We’re safe. Mr. Moretti is right here.”
Vincent stood in the doorway, watching them. The cold, calculating kingpin of Philadelphia felt something inside his chest fracture completely—and for the first time in his life, he didn't want to fix it. He wanted to live inside the wreckage forever.
