Chapter 4 - THE SIEGE OF IRONWOOD
The standoff inside the library was razor-thin.
Gabriel stood in the center of the room, his pistol aimed at Luca’s head, while four assault rifles were pointed directly at Gabriel’s back. Luca’s nervous laughter filled the silence, growing louder as he realized the tactical advantage had swung back in his favor.
"I told you, Gabe," Luca sneered, stepping out from behind the desk, confidence flooding back into his posture. "You’re an old dinosaur trying to fight a war with old rules. Drop the gun."
Gabriel didn't lower his weapon. His dark eyes remained fixed on Luca's face, his finger hovering over the trigger.
"If I die, Luca," Gabriel said softly, "you go first."
"Ah, but he won't die alone," Sokolov sneered from the doorway, taking a step into the room. "We know about the little girls upstairs, Romano. We know about the maid. My men are already clearing the second floor."
Before Sokolov could finish his sentence, a metallic object bounced off the door frame and rolled across the parquet floor, stopping directly between the feet of the two guards standing behind Sokolov.
It was a flashbang grenade.
"COVER!" Sokolov roared.
BANG-FLASH!
A blinding burst of white light and a deafening, thunderous detonation exploded in the doorway. The two guards shrieked, clutching their eyes and ears as the concussive force blew them backward into the hallway.
In the same millisecond, Gabriel pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck Luca in the shoulder, knocking him backward over the mahogany desk as he screamed in agony. Gabriel dove behind a thick marble pillar just as automatic gunfire sprayed the library, chewing up books, wood paneling, and glass framed portraits.
From the ceiling air vent directly above the hallway, a shadow dropped down with lethal precision.
Crystal Hayes landed gracefully on the back of one of the disoriented Russian mercenaries, driving her knife cleanly through his collarbone down into his heart. Before the second guard could react, she spun, grabbed his rifle barrel, knocked it upward as it discharged into the ceiling, and drove a sharp elbow straight into his trachea.
Sokolov stumbled backward through the smoke, blood streaming from his ear due to the flashbang blast, spraying his weapon blindly into the corridor.
"GET OUT!" Sokolov screamed to his remaining driver down the hall. "GET TO THE VEHICLES!"
Gabriel burst out from behind the marble pillar, stepping over the fallen furniture, his pistol raised. Luca was crawling desperately toward the open French doors leading to the garden terrace, leaving a thick trail of blood across the white carpet.
Gabriel walked up behind him, unhurried, his boots heavy against the floorboards. He stepped directly onto Luca’s shattered shoulder, pinning him to the floor.
Luca howled in pain, twisting around, looking up into the face of his former friend.
"Gabe... Gabe, please!" Luca begged, his eyes wide with pure terror. "We were brothers! Remember the old days in Cicero?! Remember what we built?!"
"I remember my wife," Gabriel said.
He did not hesitate. He fired a single shot into Luca Moretti’s chest, ending twenty years of treason in a split second.
Outside, the heavy roar of armored vehicle engines ignited on the estate's driveway. Sokolov and his surviving men were retreating toward their armored SUVs to break through the front gates.
Crystal stepped into the library, her tactical vest scuffed, a thin cut bleeding over her left eyebrow, but her grip on her weapon remained rock solid.
"Sokolov is fleeing toward the main gate," she reported, re-racking her slide. "He has three men left."
"They won't reach the gate," Gabriel said, turning toward her.
Crystal raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And why is that?"
Gabriel pulled a heavy black master transmitter from his coat pocket—the remote override for the estate's anti-vehicle security barriers. He flipped the cover plate and slammed his thumb down on the red toggle.
At the end of the long driveway, two massive, solid-steel anti-ram bollards slammed upward out of the concrete at high speed.
A second later, the sound of a violent, metal-crushing impact echoed across the estate as Sokolov’s lead SUV hit the steel barriers at sixty miles per hour, flipping completely upside down in a shower of sparks and shattered glass.
Silence returned to the Ironwood estate.
Gabriel stood amidst the ruin of his home, looking at Crystal Hayes. The maid who was supposed to be forgettable stood surrounded by smoke, blood, and spent brass casings, her breath steady, her composure absolute.
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"Isabella?" Gabriel asked, the father returning through the blood-soaked mask of the syndicate boss.
"Safe in the cellar," Crystal replied, wiping the drop of blood from her eyebrow with the back of her gloved hand. "And now, Gabriel... we go get your other daughters."
