Chapter 7 - The Trap at the Gala
Flashbang grenades detonated in a synchronized deafening roar of blinding white light and concussive sound.
*CRACK-BOOM.*
The warehouse erupted into pure, violent chaos.
Vale’s mercenaries screamed, blinded and disoriented, clutching their ears as high-velocity smoke canisters hissed across the concrete, filling the floor with dense gray fog.
“NOW!” Alessandro roared, launching himself upward from his knee like a coiled predator.
From the shattered drainage grates, Dante and twelve elite Moretti operators emerged, dressed in night-vision goggles and suppressed tactical gear. The sharp, rhythmic *thwip-thwip-thwip* of suppressed fire tore through the warehouse rafters. Vale’s outer guards dropped before they could even raise their weapons.
Inside the car, Elena didn't hesitate.
The moment she saw Victoria stumble backward from the concussive blast, dropping Noah to the concrete floor, Elena slapped the door unlock button, kicked the door wide, and threw herself into the smoke.
“NOAH!” Elena screamed.
The three-year-old boy was crawling on his hands and knees through the blinding smoke, crying hysterically, clutching his wooden truck.
“Auntie Ellie!” Noah sobbed.
Elena sprinted across the slick concrete, completely ignoring the gunfire snapping overhead. A stray bullet sparked against a steel pillar inches from her shoulder, but she didn't flinch. She slid onto her knees, wrapping her arms completely around Noah’s small body, pulling him against the heavy Kevlar over her chest.
“I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you,” she choked out, shielding his head with her arms as bullets ricocheted around them.
Suddenly, a hand reached through the smoke and seized Elena’s hair, violently jerking her head backward.
Elena screamed in pain.
Victoria stood over her, her face blackened with soot, her designer gown torn, her eyes manic and bloodshot. Victoria had pulled a small chrome revolver from her purse, pressing the hot barrel directly against Elena’s temple.
“You ruined everything!” Victoria shrieked over the gunfire. “I was going to be the queen of this city! I was going to have everything! And you took it away from me, you fat, pathetic little maid!”
Noah screamed, burying his face in Elena’s neck.
“Let him go, Victoria,” Elena hissed through gritted teeth, ignoring the agonizing pull on her scalp. “It’s over! Your men are dead!”
“Then you’re dying with me!” Victoria sneered, her finger tightening on the trigger.
Elena didn't close her eyes.
She remembered what Alessandro had taught her in the car. *Smooth is fast.*
Elena didn't reach for her own gun—she didn't have time. Instead, she took the heavy, solid oak toy truck Noah was clutching and smashed it with all her strength directly into Victoria’s kneecap.
*CRACK.*
Victoria let out a bloodcurdling shriek as her knee buckled inward under the blunt force of the dense wood. The chrome revolver slipped from her fingers, clattering across the wet floor.
Victoria collapsed to the floor, clawing at Elena’s face in desperation. But before the socialite could recover, a heavy combat boot landed squarely in the center of Victoria’s chest, pinning her to the concrete with crushing force.
Elena looked up through the dissipating smoke.
Alessandro stood over them. His combat knife was coated in crimson, his face smeared with grease and soot, his eyes blazing with primeval fury.
He didn't look at Victoria beneath his boot.
His eyes were locked completely on Elena and the crying child clutched in her arms.
“Are you hit?” Alessandro demanded, his voice trembling with an emotion he couldn't mask.
“No,” Elena gasped, pulling Noah tighter against her chest. “We’re okay. We’re okay. Alessandro, where is Lena?”
“Dante has her,” Alessandro said, breathing heavily. He gestured with his chin toward the Maybach, where Dante was already cutting the zip-ties from Lena’s wrists and guiding the sobbing woman safely into the reinforced backseat.
Underneath his boot, Victoria whimpered, clutching her shattered knee. “Alessandro... please... he forced me... Marcus forced me—”
“You brought a child into a war,” Alessandro said, looking down at his former fiancée with a coldness that made the temperature in the warehouse plummet. “You tried to murder the woman who carries my heart. You are not worth the lead in my gun.”
He flicked his gaze toward two of his men standing by. “Handcuff her. Strip her of every asset the Hale family owns. Throw her in the federal holding cell Dante prepared. Let the FBI tear her father’s empire apart.”
The two soldiers dragged the screaming, sobbing heiress away into the shadows.
Suddenly, the deafening roar of a high-powered speedboat engine tore through the silence from the edge of the dry dock pier outside.
Alessandro’s head snapped toward the open loading bay doors.
May you like
Marcus Vale.
***
