Chapter 5 - Blood on the Parquet
The violence exploded with sickening speed.
Before Sterling’s words had even finished echoing through the ballroom, three men in black suits on the mezzanine drew suppressed submachine guns.
"Down!" Dominic roared.
He didn't wait for Evelyn to duck. He hooked his arm around her waist, hoisted her off her feet, and threw both of them behind a massive, four-foot-wide marble pillar just as a devastating hail of 9mm rounds shredded the crystal chandelier above the dance floor.
*CRASH!*
Two tons of Bohemian crystal plummeted fifty feet, smashing into the center of the parquet floor in an explosion of blinding glass and steel. High-society women shrieked in terror; men in tuxedos trampled over each other toward the exits; and the ballroom devolved into absolute pandemonium.
"Cloning complete!" Evelyn yelled over the screams, pulling the velvet clutch from her purse and slamming the red button on her jammer.
Instantly, all emergency lights in the ballroom died, plunging the vast hall into pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by the frantic strobes of gunfire.
"Good girl," Dominic breathed in the dark.
From beneath his tailored tuxedo jacket, he produced two weapons: his SIG Sauer P226 and a compact Glock 43. He pressed the Glock into Evelyn’s hand.
"Safety’s off," he said, his voice cold, steady, and terrifyingly calm in the pitch-black chaos. "Stay behind me."
"I told you," she whispered, racking the slide with a clean, metallic *clack*. "I don't need a babysitter."
Two mercenary gunners rounded the marble pillar, their weapon-mounted tactical lights slicing through the dust and smoke.
Dominic stepped out, firing twice. The first gunner dropped with a shot through the throat; the second took a round to the chest, stumbling backward into the shattered glass.
Evelyn raised her Glock. A third mercenary appeared from the catering corridor, raising a shotgun toward Dominic’s blind spot.
*BANG! BANG!*
Evelyn fired a controlled pair. Both rounds struck the shooter in the center mass, dropping him instantly onto the marble floor.
Dominic glanced back at her over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in dark amusement despite the storm of bullets chipping away at the pillar above their heads.
"Nice grouping, Carter."
"I told you my sidearms don't pull left," she fired back, smoke curling from the barrel of her weapon.
From the mezzanine above, Marcus Vance’s voice crackled through Dominic’s hidden earpiece: *"Boss! I’ve got the mezzanine pinned, but Sterling is hauling ass toward the rooftop helipad! He’s got the briefcase!"*
"He doesn't have the briefcase," Evelyn said, looking down at the tablet display on her phone. "The clone only took seventy percent of the master encryption matrix! If Sterling leaves the city with that hardware token, the Council will wipe their global servers remotely in ten minutes! We have to take the physical Pelican case!"
Dominic looked at the grand staircase. Two more hitmen were descending, laying down suppressive fire.
"Can you make the roof?" Dominic asked, reloading his magazine.
"Can you clear the stairs?" she countered.
Dominic smiled—a terrifying, blood-soaked grin.
"Watch me."
He stepped out from behind the pillar like an unstoppable force of nature. Firing with pinpoint, lethal precision, he dropped both shooters on the stairs in three seconds flat. Evelyn moved right on his heels, her emerald silk gown torn at the hem to allow for rapid movement, her bare feet discarding the expensive stilettos as she sprinted up the marble steps across broken glass.
They burst through the heavy fire doors onto the service stairwell, taking the steps three at a time.
On the 18th-floor landing, the door swung open violently.
Paul Rossi stood there, panting, a silver revolver trembling in his sweat-slick hands.
"Dominic!" Paul cried, backing up against the handrail. "Wait! Dominic, please! You don't understand what they threatened me with! They have my grandchildren in Milan!"
Dominic stopped three steps below him. The barrel of his SIG Sauer never wavered, aimed directly at Paul’s forehead.
"You sat at my father's table for thirty years, Paul," Dominic said, his voice devoid of anger, which made it infinitely more terrifying. "You drank his wine. You watched me grow up. And then you sold my family to the man who murdered Arthur Vance."
"They're too big, Dominic!" Paul wept, tears cutting through the grime on his face. "The Obsidian Council controls the banks! They control the senators! You can't beat them! If you don't surrender the ledgers, they will slaughter everyone who carries the Moretti name!"
"There's only one Moretti who matters right now, Paul," Dominic said quietly.
"Who?"
"Me."
*BANG.*
Dominic fired once.
Paul Rossi’s eyes rolled back, and his body slumped over the railing, tumbling down the central stairwell shaft into the abyss below.
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Dominic didn't even watch him fall. He stepped over the pool of blood on the concrete landing, kicked open the final heavy metal door, and emerged onto the rain-lashed rooftop of the St. Regis.
***
