Chapter 3 - Wolves at the Door
The air in the safehouse turned glacial in a fraction of a second.
Roman didn't panic. Panic was a luxury reserved for the weak, and Roman Callahan was forged from something much harder than steel. In one fluid motion, he set Caleb’s notebook down, stood up, and drew a sleek, suppressed 9mm pistol from a shoulder holster hidden beneath his vest.
"Get upstairs," Roman commanded, his voice absolute and unarguable. "Take Lily to the master suite panic room. Marcus will show you."
"No," I said, standing up to face him, my voice shaking but resolute. "I'm not running and hiding while you walk into a firefight."
"Elena, this isn't a negotiation," Roman snapped, stepping close enough that I could feel the raw heat of his anger and focus. "Those men out there aren't thugs with baseball bats. They're professional cleaners sent by Dante Moretti. If they find you, they won't just kill you—they'll take everything you know."
"Dante Moretti?" The name alone sent a shiver down my spine. Even in the public eye, Moretti’s reputation as a ruthless cartel-backed enforcer within the syndicate was legendary.
"He's the one who hunted Caleb," Roman said, his thumb brushing my cheek in a fleeting, surprisingly tender gesture before his expression hardened back into stone. "Now go. Protect my niece."
He didn't wait for my answer. He turned sharply toward the door, motioning for Marcus to secure the hallway.
With my heart hammering wildly against my ribs, I scooped Lily out of her makeshift bassinet on the armchair. She stirred, letting out a tiny, sleepy yawn, completely oblivious to the death-stalkers gathering outside in the dark. I clutched her tightly to my chest, following Marcus down a dimly lit, wood-paneled corridor toward the reinforced panic room hidden behind a sliding bookshelf.
As the heavy steel door hissed shut, sealing us inside a secure, windowless sanctuary equipped with emergency monitors and communication feeds, the first muffled pop of a silenced gunshot echoed from the courtyard below.
I stared at the security monitor mounted on the wall.
The screen split into four quadrants, showing live feeds from the estate's external cameras. Through the infrared lens, I watched three figures clad in tactical black gear scale the perimeter wall like ghosts, moving with terrifying efficiency toward the main house.
My fingers dug into Lily’s blanket as I watched Roman step out onto the moonlit stone patio alone.
He didn't flinch when the first bullet chipped the stone pillar inches from his head. He raised his weapon with terrifying, supernatural calm, fired twice into the darkness, and dropped the lead infiltrator before the man even hit the ground.
Bang. Bang.
Clean. Precise. Dead.
The remaining two mercenaries scattered into the shadows of the garden, taking cover behind the manicured boxwood hedges.
"You're dead, Callahan!" a raspy voice hissed through a megaphone from the courtyard, echoing faintly through the estate's external intercom. "Moretti wants the girl and the kid! Hand them over and maybe we leave you breathing!"
Roman stood in the open moonlight, his posture completely unshakeable, his gun held loosely at his side.
"Tell Dante," Roman’s voice carried clearly across the feed, cold as a winter grave, "that if he wants my family, he’s going to have to crawl through a mountain of his own men's corpses to get them."
Within seconds, the courtyard erupted into absolute chaos.
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More reinforcements poured over the wall—not just two men, but a half-dozen heavily armed operatives flooding the grounds. Roman’s private guards engaged them in a fierce, brutal firefight, muzzle flashes lighting up the darkness like a violent thunderstorm.
Inside the panic room, I squeezed my eyes shut, rocking back and forth with Lily clutched safely against my heart, praying to a God I hadn't spoken to in years that Roman would walk back through that door alive.
