Chapter 7 - Blood in the Snow
Adrian’s instincts, honed by a decade of brutal gang warfare and assassination attempts, took over in a fraction of a millisecond. He lunged across the room, tackling Elena to the floor just as a high-powered rifle bullet shattered the double-paned window, showering the room with deadly shards of glass and burying itself deep into the wooden bookshelf behind them.
"Get down!" Adrian roared, shielding Elena’s body with his own as he drew a heavy Sig Sauer pistol from a concealed holster beneath his suit jacket. His dark eyes flashed with lethal fury. The tranquility of the Vermont countryside had been an illusion; his enemies in Chicago had tracked his movements, tracing his private jet to Burlington and following him straight to the sanctuary he had built for his family.
"Mommy! Mr. Stranger!" a terrified cry echoed from the top of the stairs.
"Julian, stay in your room! Do not move!" Elena screamed back, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked up at Adrian, horror dawning in her eyes. "They followed you here."
"Marcus," Adrian muttered into a encrypted comm-link clipped to his collar, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm, icy register. "Perimeter compromised. Sniper in the northern tree line. Neutralize him. Protect the house."
Outside, the quiet Vermont night erupted into the sharp, deafening cracks of suppressed gunfire. Shouts echoed from the treeline as Adrian’s private security detail—who had trailed his town car at a discreet distance—engaged the unknown assailants. Adrian didn't hesitate. He pulled Elena up, pushing her down the hallway toward the back pantry. "There's a root cellar beneath the floorboards. Get Julian and go down there. Lock it from the inside."
"And you?" Elena demanded, her fingers clutching his lapel. "Adrian, there's more than one of them!"
"I'm not leaving you," he said fiercely, his hand cupping the back of her head, pulling her in for a desperate, fleeting kiss that tasted of gunpowder and salt. "Go. Now."
He turned and kicked open the back door, stepping out into the cold autumn night just as a second assassin emerged from the shadow of the woodpile, raising a submachine gun. Adrian moved with blinding speed, firing two precise shots that dropped the gunman before he could pull the trigger. But as the man hit the ground, Adrian’s comm-link crackled with a terrifying update from Marcus. "Boss, we got one alive, but he wasn't sent by the Chicago syndicates. He's carrying a corporate burner phone. The hit was ordered from inside the city... by someone tied to Victoria Sterling's inner circle."
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Adrian froze, a cold rage blooming in his chest that eclipsed anything he had ever felt. Victoria hadn't just been a business nuisance years ago; she had harbored a bitter, lethal obsession with him, and she had just threatened his son.
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