Chapter 6 - The Breach at Midnight
The nursery windows exploded inward.
Matteo moved with terrifying speed. Before the first shard of tempered ballistic glass could hit the rug, his arm had locked around Sophie’s waist, violently sweeping her off her feet and pulling her down behind the reinforced steel wall beside the closet.
*RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!*
High-caliber rounds shredded the hand-painted murals of the Boston Common, tearing through the cherrywood crib, sending splinters of wood and white linen flying through the air like confetti. The deafening roar of gunfire shook the very foundations of the old brownstone.
Alarms wailed through the corridors—high-pitched, rhythmic shrieks accompanied by flashing red emergency strobes.
“Stay down!” Matteo commanded, his voice sharp as broken glass.
He didn't have his service weapon. He was wearing only trousers and a henley. But with three quick motions, he reached under the bottom baseboard of the nursery closet, popped a hidden latch, and pulled out a black tactical case. Within four seconds, he had assembled a SIG Sauer MPX submachine gun, slapped a thirty-round magazine into the well, and chambered a round with a metallic *CLACK*.
Sophie curled into a tight ball against the floor, her hands locked over her belly, her breathing coming in jagged, terrified gasps. The baby was kicking violently inside her, reacting to the concussive pressure waves of the gunfire.
“Matteo!” she cried out over the din.
“Leo! Report!” Matteo shouted into the tactical comm unit he pulled from the case and shoved into his ear.
Static crackled, followed by the sound of heavy return fire through the earpiece. *“Boss! North gate breached! They used an armored utility truck to ram through the stone pillars! It’s Salvatore’s crew! They’ve got Mercers on the perimeter with private security contractors! They’re using night vision—they’re inside the west wing!”*
“How many?”
*“Twenty! Maybe twenty-five! Salvatore is trying to take the house before the sun comes up!”*
Matteo’s face transformed. The vulnerable man who had stood beside the crib three minutes ago vanished completely. What remained was a demon carved from ice and gunpowder.
“Hold the stairs,” Matteo ordered into the comm. “I’m taking her to the bunker.”
He looked down at Sophie. He didn't offer comforting words. He reached down, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet with unstoppable force.
“You run when I say run,” he told her, his eyes boring into hers with an intensity that burned away her panic. “You do not look back. If I fall, you keep running until you hit the steel door at the end of the wine cellar. The code is zero-four-one-two. Enter it, lock it, and do not open it for anyone except Leo. Do you understand me?”
“Matteo, you’re not dying here!” she screamed, her fingernails digging into his forearms. “Don't you dare talk about falling!”
A grim, lethal smile touched his lips. “I have no intention of dying, wife. But in case God is feeling humorous tonight, remember what I told you in the nursery.”
He kicked open the heavy reinforced door leading to the hallway.
Smoke was already filling the corridor, smelling of cordite, burning insulation, and blood. Down the hall, near the grand staircase, two Duca guards were exchanging fire with men wearing black tactical vests and unmarked balaclavas.
One of the Duca guards took a round to the shoulder and collapsed against the wallpaper with a spray of crimson.
Matteo didn't hesitate. He raised the MPX, leaned out from the nursery threshold, and fired three controlled bursts.
*THWIP-THWIP-THWIP.*
*THWIP-THWIP-THWIP.*
Two of the intruders dropped instantly at the landing, their rifles clattering down the marble stairs. Matteo grabbed Sophie’s hand and pulled her behind him, moving down the back service corridor used by staff.
The stairs were narrow, winding down toward the kitchen.
Sophie’s heart hammered against her throat. Her swollen body felt heavy, uncoordinated, every step down the wooden stairs sending shooting pains through her pelvis. But the terrifying adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her moving.
They reached the kitchen pantry when the double swinging doors exploded off their hinges.
A man in a tactical vest burst through, shotgun raised.
Before he could align the barrel, Matteo threw himself forward, driving his shoulder into the man’s sternum. The shotgun discharged into the ceiling, raining plaster and copper pipe fragments down over them. Matteo drove the heel of his hand upward into the man’s nose with a sickening crunch, seized the barrel of the shotgun, twisted it out of the man’s grip, and fired a point-blank round into his chest.
The man collapsed against the industrial stainless-steel prep table.
Standing behind him in the shattered kitchen was Kyle Mercer.
Kyle was holding an unregistered silver revolver with shaking hands, wearing a bulletproof vest over his tailored dress shirt, his eyes wild with terror and manic adrenaline.
“Sophie!” Kyle screamed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched shriek. “Get away from him! He’s using you! Salvatore said if we take the house, the estate is mine! The trust fund is mine!”
Matteo stepped between them, his submachine gun hanging low at his hip. The barrel was smoking.
“Kyle,” Matteo said, his voice terrifyingly calm in the smoke-filled kitchen. “Put the gun down.”
“No! You ruined my life!” Kyle sobbed, his finger whitening against the trigger. “I was supposed to have forty million dollars! I had everything lined up! And then she wouldn't sign the non-disclosure agreement! She wouldn't abort the bastard when I told her to! And now you’re taking everything!”
Sophie stepped out from behind Matteo’s shoulder, her face pale, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated fury.
“You told me to abort it?” she said, her voice shaking with a rage that silenced the room. “You left me in an alley with two hundred dollars and told me that if I kept it, you’d make sure I spent the rest of my life behind bars for extortion! You never wanted this baby, Kyle! You wanted the money!”
Kyle’s eyes darted between them, frantic, unhinged. “It’s my blood, Sophie! Salvatore said if I kill Matteo, the Commission will recognize my claim! We can be a family! We can take the money and leave!”
“You are not a father,” Sophie said, stepping forward until she was beside Matteo, her hand settling firmly on her husband’s arm. “You are an infection. And my husband is the cure.”
Kyle screamed and raised the revolver.
Matteo didn't fire his weapon.
With blinding speed, he closed the distance, grabbed Kyle’s wrist with his left hand, and twisted it downward with an audible, sickening *SNAP*.
Kyle howled in agony as the bone shattered. The revolver fell harmlessly to the linoleum floor.
Matteo grabbed Kyle by the throat, lifted him clean off the floor, and slammed him against the stainless-steel refrigerator. The metal dented behind Kyle’s skull.
“You came into my house,” Matteo whispered into Kyle’s face, his fingers sinking deep into the younger man’s windpipe. “You shot at my wife’s nursery. You terrified my child.”
“Matteo,” Sophie said behind him.
Matteo didn't look back. “Do not look, Sophie.”
“No,” she said, her voice steady, cold, and possessing an authority that made Matteo pause. “Do not kill him in front of me. Do not let his filthy blood be the last thing my baby hears tonight.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened. For three agonizing seconds, Kyle’s life hung by a thread as thin as spider silk.
Then, Matteo threw Kyle down onto the floor like a sack of spoiled flour.
Kyle curled into a ball, weeping, clutching his broken wrist against his chest.
At that moment, the back doors swung open. Leo entered, his face smeared with soot and blood, leading four heavily armed Duca enforcers. Behind them, pinned against the wall with zip-ties around his wrists, was Salvatore Duca, his face purple with bruised humiliation.
“It’s over, Boss,” Leo said, wiping blood from his eyebrow. “The perimeter is secure. Salvatore’s men surrendered the moment we took out their technical truck.”
Matteo looked down at his groveling uncle, then at Kyle weeping on the tile.
May you like
“Take them to the cellar,” Matteo ordered, his voice echoing through the ruined kitchen. “Call the city coroner. Tell him he has six bodies to collect from the north lawn. And call the District Attorney. Tell him Don Matteo Duca has a delivery for him that will guarantee his reelection for the next twenty years.”
***
