Chapter 6 - Blood on the Concrete
The first shot didn't come from Vance’s men.
It came from Damian.
The sound inside the enclosed concrete cellar was deafening, a monstrous thunderclap that rattled my teeth and left my ears ringing with high-pitched agony. Damian fired through the wooden risers of the staircase, the heavy hollow-point slug tearing upward through the pine steps.
The man on the left side of the stairs let out a wet, strangled gasp and tumbled backward, crashing into the narrow hallway wall above.
"Nora! Get down!" Damian roared, lunging forward with his left arm, physically slamming me behind the heavy steel drafting table.
Gunfire erupted from above. Plaster, wood splinters, and concrete chips exploded everywhere in a furious hail of lead. The two men above sprayed down into the cellar blindly. Bullets ricocheted off the iron drafting table with terrifying clangs that vibrated through my bones.
"Sadie! Lucy!" I screamed, terror ripping through my throat. My girls were up there. They were right next to those monsters.
"They ran!" Damian shouted, firing two more measured rounds up through the ceiling opening. "I saw them bolt for the front porch when Vance came down! Stay down!"
Damian didn't wait behind the table. He moved with a brutal, terrifying efficiency that proved every whisper I had ever heard about him was true. He didn't duck like a man trying to survive; he advanced like an apex predator.
He surged up the concrete stairs two at a time, firing with ruthless precision through the gaps in the timber. A second scream echoed from the hallway. A heavy body hit the floorboards with a dull, final thud.
"Damian, wait!" Vance shrieked from the hallway above. The smug corporate arrogance had vanished, replaced by the shrill panic of an old man whose violence had suddenly turned back on him. "We can settle this! The board will negotiate!"
"You tried to murder my brother's children twice," Damian’s voice carried up through the smoke, cold and final. "There are no negotiations."
A single shot rang out.
Then silence.
The thick smell of cordite and burnt gunpowder drifted down into the cellar, burning my throat and eyes. I scrambled to my feet, my legs shaking so violently I had to lean against the steel table to keep from collapsing.
"Damian?" I called out, my voice cracking.
No answer.
Panic seized me. I sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, slipping on blood and splintered wood.
When I reached the hallway, the scene was carnage. One man lay slumped against the wall, motionless. Vance lay near the front door, clutching his shattered shoulder, groaning in agony as blood seeped through his bespoke vest.
Damian was standing on the porch, his back to me, his gun lowered.
I burst through the door, my heart in my throat. "Sadie! Lucy!"
Beside the porch steps, huddled beneath the shelter of a giant, overgrown lilac bush, two pink coats were clinging to each other. Sadie had her arms wrapped tightly around Lucy’s head, shielding her ears from the gunfire.
When Sadie saw me, her lower lip trembled, and the tough facade finally cracked. "Mommy!"
I collapsed to my knees in the freezing mud, pulling both of them into my arms with a force that made them gasp. I buried my face in their damp curls, sobbing uncontrollably, kissing their foreheads, checking every inch of their arms and legs for blood. "I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe. Mommy’s here."
"The bad man fell down," Lucy whispered against my neck, her little body trembling like a leaf. "Uncle Damian made a big noise."
Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel behind us.
Damian stood at the bottom of the porch steps. His wool coat was torn at the shoulder, stained with soot and blood that wasn't his own. He looked down at the girls, his chest heaving, his dark eyes filled with an emotion that looked dangerously close to grief.
He knelt in the mud beside us. Slowly, carefully, he reached out a trembling hand and touched Lucy’s cheek with the back of two fingers.
"You're safe now," Damian said, his voice thick and rough. "Both of you. I swear on Leo’s life."
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He looked up at me. The corporate mask was gone completely.
"We have to open that safe, Nora," he said, breathing hard. "Whatever Leo hid down there, it’s the only thing that will keep the rest of the board from coming after them."
