Chapter 4 - AMBUSH IN THE NIGHT
I didn't sleep. How could I? I paced the length of the guest bedroom, formulating a dozen impossible escape plans. It was nearly 3:00 AM when the silence of the penthouse was shattered.
It wasn't a subtle noise. It was a deafening explosion that shook the entire building. The floor vibrated beneath my feet, and the alarms instantly began shrieking. Red emergency lights flooded the hallway.
The door to my room flew open. Dominic stood there, a heavy matte-black pistol in his hand, his eyes blazing with a feral, deadly light I had never seen before.
"Get your shoes on," he ordered, his voice cracking like a whip. "Now!"
"What's happening?" I gasped, grabbing my sneakers and my bag.
"The Falcone family," he snarled, grabbing my arm and pulling me into the hallway. The smell of smoke and gunpowder already filled the air. "They found out my security protocols were updating tonight. They breached the lower levels. We have to move."
Chaos erupted. Gunfire echoed up the elevator shafts. Dominic pulled me toward a hidden service stairwell, his body constantly shifting to shield mine. His men were shouting orders in Italian, exchanging fire with heavily armed intruders in the lobby below.
"Keep your head down!" Dominic yelled over the deafening roar of automatic weapons. He pushed me behind a concrete pillar as a hail of bullets shattered the glass doors of the penthouse.
I was terrified, but the nurse in me kicked in. My hands stopped shaking. I stayed low, clutching my bag, my mind hyper-focused on survival. Dominic moved with lethal precision, taking down three men before clearing a path to a private service elevator. We scrambled inside, and he smashed the button for the garage.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded, gripping my shoulders as the elevator descended. His chest was heaving, his eyes frantically searching my body for blood.
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"I'm fine," I breathed.
"I will kill every single one of them for bringing this to my home," he vowed, his voice a low, terrifying rumble. We reached the basement. Another black SUV was waiting, engine roaring. We threw ourselves into the backseat just as the garage doors blew open. Tires screeched, rubber burned, and we tore out into the night, leaving the burning penthouse behind. We were going off the grid.
