Chapter 12 - Blood in the Winter Garden
The darkness in the kitchen was thick enough to drown in, smelling of spilled milk and sudden terror.
I dropped onto my hands and knees behind the steel preparation island, ignoring the agonizing pinch in my stitched ribs.
The boots moved with unnatural rhythm—light on the balls of the feet, completely silent on the tile grout.
A professional.
A man who didn't need light to navigate a killing ground.
I reached blindly into the low open rack beside the dish pit, my fingers wrapping around the handle of a heavy cast-iron skillet.
It was not a firearm, but in close quarters, ten pounds of cast iron carried the kinetic weight of a sledgehammer.
Through the open archway of the pantry, a faint green glow materialized as the intruder activated night-vision goggles.
The green twin lenses cast two phantom circles onto the stainless-steel doors of the walk-in refrigerator.
The man was tall, lean, and wore black tactical neoprene that absorbed every stray reflection.
In his gloved right hand, he held a suppressed automatic pistol fitted with a carbon-fiber barrel shroud.
He saw the shattered glass and the pool of cyanide-laced milk on the floorboards, pausing to inspect the spill.
He realized immediately that the bait had been discovered, and his head snapped toward the shadow of the central island.
I didn't wait for him to raise the barrel.
Using every ounce of strength remaining in my injured torso, I swung the cast-iron skillet in a brutal, sweeping horizontal arc.
The heavy iron smashed directly into his forearm, shattering the bone and sending his suppressed weapon skittering into the dark.
The Ghost let out a sharp, guttural hiss of pain, spinning with predatory speed and driving a combat knife toward my throat.
The blade sliced through the wool fabric of my collar, missing my jugular vein by less than an inch.
I fell backward against the dish cart, sending stacks of ceramic bowls crashing down in an avalanche of noise.
The commotion echoed throughout the ground floor like an explosion.
Before the assassin could reset his blade for a downward strike, a roar of pure masculine fury shook the kitchen.
Gabriel burst through the swinging mahogany doors from the main hall, firing his heavy semi-automatic blind into the dark.
Three deafening muzzle flashes lit the room in strobes of violent orange light.
The first round took Damian Cross in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around and severing the strap of his tactical goggles.
Cross didn't panic; he dropped low, sweeping his boot across Gabriel’s shins and forcing the Don down to one knee.
The two men collided like titans in the pitch-black space, crashing into the steel counters and rolling across broken porcelain.
Cross had the agility of a serpent, his combat knife flashing in close arcs aimed at Gabriel’s throat and eyes.
Gabriel fought with the savage, brutal strength of a father defending the threshold of his child’s nursery.
His massive left hand caught the assassin’s wrist, squeezing until Cross’s fingers went numb and the knife clattered to the floor.
Gabriel drove his forehead directly into Cross’s nose, shattering cartilage and covering both their faces in warm blood.
“Who sent you into my house?” Gabriel snarled, slamming the assassin’s spine against the edge of the butcher’s block.
Cross spat a mouthful of crimson foam directly onto Gabriel’s cheek, his lips curling into a manic, dying sneer.
“Vincent... already has the boy’s trust fund... Don Rossi,” Cross wheezed, his breath rattling through broken ribs.
“Julian signed the power of attorney... in the federal holding cell... two hours ago.”
“You’re an outlaw in your own state... and the feds are coming with the warrants.”
“Then they will find your corpse waiting for them on my front lawn,” Gabriel whispered coldly.
With a sickening, definitive crack, Gabriel wrenched the assassin’s neck to the side, ending the threat forever.
Damian Cross collapsed onto the broken tiles, his eyes staring blankly at the dark ceiling.
Gabriel stood in the silence of the wrecked kitchen, his chest heaving, his hands coated in sweat, blood, and motor grease.
He turned to me immediately, dropping to his knees and pulling me up into his arms with frantic desperation.
“Did he cut you?” he demanded, his hands searching my neck, shoulders, and ribs for warm moisture.
“I am fine, Gabriel,” I gasped, clutching his bruised wrists to steady his trembling hands. “It was just my collar.”
“You hit him with an iron pan,” Gabriel muttered, a breathless, incredulous laugh escaping his bloody lips.
“I told you,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against his bruised brow, “I know how to clean this house.”
From the staircase above, the frantic sound of small footsteps echoed down the grand corridor.
Leo stood at the kitchen entrance in his gray pajamas, clutching his wooden locomotive, his eyes wide in the gloom.
He didn't cry when he saw the blood, nor did he shrink back from the ruined room.
He ran straight past the dead assassin, past the shattered porcelain, and threw himself into our arms.
“Papa,” Leo cried out, his arms wrapping tightly around Gabriel’s neck while his small hand gripped my sweater.
“Elena safe. Papa safe.”
Gabriel buried his face into his son’s hair, his massive shoulders trembling as he held both of us against his heart.
The family was intact, but our sanctuary had been breached, defiled, and marked for destruction.
Gabriel lifted Leo onto his shoulder and pulled me to my feet, his slate-gray eyes hardening into cold, unbreakable steel.
“The house is dead,” Gabriel declared, looking around at the ruins of his ancestral home.
May you like
“Take the emergency bag, Elena.”
“Tonight, we go to war at Iron Point.”
