Chapter 4 - THE INTRUDER AT THE GATES
The warning siren didn't wail; on the Salvatore estate, alarms were silent, pulsing through discreet red LED strips hidden along the crown molding of the corridors.
Alio’s demeanor shifted in an instant from conflicted interrogator to absolute commander of a syndicate army. He drew the Kimber .45 from his holster, racked the slide with a clean, metallic clack, and gripped Jolene by the nape of her neck, shoving her toward the reinforced study behind the library wall.
“Down into the vault,” Alio ordered, his voice cold and devoid of fear. “The door seals from the inside. Take Bee and Theo. If anyone touches that latch who isn't me or Dante, you pull the secondary lever behind the desk. It floods the access chute with nitrogen gas.”
“Mr. Salvatore—”
“Move!” he roared.
Jolene didn't hesitate. She bolted through the hidden paneled door into the private corridor connecting to the children's quarters.
Alio took the marble staircase down to the grand foyer three steps at a time. The heavy oak-and-iron front doors were already barred by steel drop-bolts. Outside, the screech of heavy tires on gravel echoed off the limestone facade, followed by the dull, sickening thud of automatic weapons fire clearing the gatehouse.
Dante and four armed guards in tactical black vests were already in position behind the marble pillars, their short-barreled assault rifles aimed dead at the entryway.
“Who is it?” Alio demanded, checking the live feed on the tactical terminal mounted beside the vestibule.
“Carlo Moretti,” Dante spat, wiping sweat from his brow. “He didn't run to South America, boss. He’s been hiding in Providence. He’s got eighteen men out there, armed with military-grade hardware. They brought a breaching ram mounted to the lead truck.”
On the camera monitor, Alio saw him: Carlo Moretti. He had aged ten years in three. His face was gaunt, his expensive suit rumpled, his hair greasy and thinning. But his eyes burned with the wild, desperate madness of a cornered hyena. He didn't want a negotiation. He had come on a suicide run to reclaim the woman who held his financial codes and the daughter he viewed as his property.
“He tracked her,” Alio realized with sickening clarity. “He didn't come for the Salvatore territory. He came for Jolene.”
A massive crash shook the front portico. The steel-reinforced front doors groaned under the impact of the motorized ram. Plaster dusted down from the chandelier overhead.
“Let them breach,” Alio commanded softly, his ice-cold composure spreading to his men like a calming drug. “Do not fire until the lead vehicle crosses the inner foyer. If Carlo wants to enter my house, I want him to die under my roof.”
The doors buckled on the third strike. With a shriek of shearing steel, the heavy timber splintered inward. Smoke grenades tumbled across the black-and-white checkered marble, hissing white, blinding fog into the foyer.
Men in tactical masks surged through the breach, their muzzle flashes illuminating the smoke in rhythmic strobe bursts.
“Fire!” Dante yelled.
The roar of suppressed automatic gunfire was deafening. Glass shattered, mirrors exploded off the walls, and the antique vases that had belonged to three generations of Salvatores turned to dust in the crossfire.
Alio stepped out from behind his pillar with terrifying precision. He raised his handgun with one hand, squeezing the trigger with clinical rhythm. One. Two. A shooter in the doorway dropped like a stone. Three. Four. Another intruder crumpled behind the shattered oak doors.
Through the clearing smoke, Carlo Moretti appeared, dragging a wounded enforcer backwards as a human shield. In his right hand, Carlo held a detonator wired to two bricks of C4 strapped across his chest.
“Salvatore!” Carlo screamed, his voice raw and blood-spattered. “Call off your dogs or I blow this entire wing into the basement! You give me my wife and my brat, and I walk! You keep them, and we all burn together!”
From the upper gallery overlooking the foyer, a small, terrified voice suddenly pierced through the gunsmoke.
“Mommy!”
Alio’s blood turned to ice. He looked up.
Bee had slipped past the vault guards. She was standing at the gilded railing of the second-floor mezzanine, clutching her broken doll, staring down at the carnage below.
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And right behind her, stepping out from the shadows of the mezzanine doorway, was Carlo’s secondary assault team.
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