Chapter 44 - SHADOWS ON THE GLASS
"Francesca," I whispered, the name tasting like ash on my tongue. "You're dead. Vincent took down your family's estate. The ledgers—"
"Ledgers are just paper, darling," her voice purred through the satellite transceiver, accompanied by the background clinking of ice in a crystal tumbler. "Did you really think Salvatore worked alone? Did you really think my engagement to Vincent was about love, or even about our fathers' treaties? Daniel was building something far larger than the New York syndicate. A global banking registry that bypasses every government agency on earth."
"And Hope is the key," Marco said, rising slowly from the bench, picking up an assault rifle from the cabin's armory rack.
"Hope is the biological cipher," Francesca corrected, her tone turning ice-cold. "Her genetic code was mapped into Daniel’s Swiss accounts before she was even born. Salvatore was an arrogant brute—he wanted to slaughter you. But I? I only need the child alive. You, Sarah, are entirely disposable."
A heavy mechanical clunk reverberated through the cabin walls.
Outside, the perimeter floodlights hummed to life, their bright halogen beams slicing through the blackout shutters. Through the tiny viewing slits, I saw five dark figures in tactical gear fanning out across the snow, their weapons raised.
"They're on the porch," Marco whispered, chambering a round with a lethal click. "Get the baby into the sub-floor safe beneath the rug. Don't come out, no matter what you hear."
"Marco, no—you can't fight five of them alone!"
"I'm not alone," Marco said, his gaze locking onto mine with an unreadable intensity. "I'm Vincent's right hand. And you are carrying the future of the Bennett bloodline. Get in the damn floor, Sarah!"
The front door blew inward with a deafening crack.
A flashbang grenade sailed through the ruined entryway, illuminating the cabin in blinding, disorienting white fury. Marco fired from the hip before the grenade even went off, his weapon barking in rhythmic three-round bursts. The lead intruder dropped instantly, his body collapsing across the threshold.
I snatched Hope, diving onto the hardwood floor behind the kitchen counter. I found the hidden latch beneath the faded woven rug, yanking open the heavy iron hatch that led down into a concrete bunker beneath the cabin floor.
Gunfire tore through the room—a relentless storm of lead chewing up timber, shattering porcelain, pulverizing the stone mantelpiece. Marco was moving like a phantom, firing, reloading, taking cover behind reinforced steel plates.
A man in black tactical armor rounded the counter, his submachine gun aimed straight at my face.
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Time slowed down. Hope shrieked against my chest.
I didn't think. I grabbed the heavy cast-iron skillet resting on the dead stove and swung it with all the desperate strength of a mother fighting for her child's life.
