Chapter 6 - THE BATTLE OF HIGHLAND PARK
Norah didn't scream. Panic had killed women in her family before, and she refused to let it claim her tonight.
Marcus stepped into the pantry, his narrow eyes shifting from Norah to the boy in the wheelchair. A cruel smile spread across his scarred face.
"Dante said you were getting too close to the kid," Marcus said, raising the weapon. "Pity. You're prettier than the last nurse."
"Marcus," Leo rasped suddenly from the wheelchair, his weak voice cutting through the silent room.
Marcus blinked, visibly startled. "What the hell? The kid talks?"
That half-second distraction was all Norah needed.
She pulled the 9mm from her apron pocket and fired twice through the fabric.
BANG! BANG!
The deafening gunshots echoed in the enclosed pantry. The heavy 9mm rounds struck Marcus squarely in the chest. He stumbled backward with a grunt, his submachine gun discharging harmlessly into the ceiling plaster before he collapsed heavy against the shelving, scattering jars of imported olives across the floor.
"Hold on, Leo!" Norah yelled, grabbing the wheelchair handles as the service elevator doors slid open. She shoved the chair inside, slammed the button for the basement, and hit the door-close switch just as footstep alarms began chiming throughout the estate.
Upstairs, the gunshots triggered chaos.
Dante Calderon was walking toward the main hallway when the security alarms began wailing. He pulled his weapon, turning to his three loyal guards.
"The nurse knows!" Dante barked into his radio. "Lock down the estate! Find Victor and take him down! Nobody leaves this house alive!"
Before Dante could move toward the stairs, a heavy burst of gunfire shattered the bulletproof glass of the second-floor balcony.
Victor Romano emerged from the shadows like an vengeful spirit. He held a high-powered tactical rifle, firing down at Dante’s men with terrifying precision. Two of Dante’s enforcers dropped instantly before they could even raise their weapons.
Dante dove behind a marble pillar, bullet fragments showering over his suit.
"Victor!" Dante screamed above the wail of the alarms. "You can't win this! I have twenty men outside! The whole estate is surrounded!"
"Then they're all going to die with you, Dante!" Victor’s voice echoed down the hall, cold, resonant, and absolute.
Victor advanced along the upper railing, laying down covering fire as he moved toward the central staircase. He was a man possessed, driven by fourteen months of accumulated grief, rage, and the knowledge that his son was alive and fighting for his life below.
Dante blind-fired around the pillar, retreating toward the grand front doors. "You built this house into a prison, Victor! And now you're going to die inside it!"
Down in the sub-basement, the service elevator doors dinged open into the damp, cold air of the wine cellar.
Norah pushed Leo through the rows of dusty oak barrels toward the heavy steel storm door at the far end of the corridor. The damp air smelled of aged wine and earth.
She reached the storm door, pulled the keycard Victor had given her, and swiped it through the reader. The indicator light flickered from red to green with a heavy hydraulic hiss.
She threw the steel door open.
Outside, the cold rain lashed against their faces. A steep concrete ramp led up to the wooded ravine at the edge of the Highland Park property.
"We made it, Leo," Norah breathed, pushing the wheelchair up the slippery ramp into the storm.
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"Norah... look," Leo whispered, pointing toward the tree line.
Standing at the top of the ramp, illuminated by the flashing security lights of the estate, were two of Dante’s outer perimeter guards, rifles raised directly at them.
