Chapter 6 - Blood on the Marble
The heavy oak doors of the foyer shattered inward under the impact of a breaching ram.
Concussion grenades detonated, filling the lower hallway with deafening thunder and blinding flashes. Lena pressed her back against the library wall, her ears ringing, but her fingers remained locked tight around the grip of the pistol Victor had given her.
Four heavily armed mercenaries, wearing night-vision gear and unmarked body armor, cleared the foyer in tight tactical formation.
Victor didn't wait behind cover.
He stepped into the marble corridor like an apparition of death itself. His weapon fired with rhythmic, terrifying precision. Three shots cracked in under two seconds. Two mercenaries collapsed before they could raise their assault rifles, their helmets pierced through the visor seams.
The remaining two shooters scrambled behind the polished granite pillars, opening fire with automatic bursts that chewed through Victor's antique paintings and turned plaster walls into dust.
"Dmitri! Flank the eastern stairwell!" Victor shouted, sliding behind a reinforced marble archway as rounds tore into the trim.
Lena saw what Victor couldn't.
From the mezzanine above, a fifth gunman had rappelled down from the skylight, positioning his rifle directly at the back of Victor’s exposed archway. He had a clean, unobstructed shot at Victor’s head.
There was no time to yell. There was no time to think.
Lena leaned out from the library doorway, raised her weapon with both hands, aligned the iron sights with the gunman's torso on the catwalk, and squeezed the trigger.
The recoil bucked against her wrists. The bullet found its mark, striking the shooter through the throat. He dropped his rifle, stumbled over the railing, and fell twenty feet, crashing hard onto the glass dining table below.
Victor whirled around, his eyes locking onto Lena, then down to the fallen gunman.
The shock in his eyes lasted only a fraction of a second, replaced immediately by an intense, burning respect.
"East is clear!" Dmitri yelled from down the hall, stepping over two more neutralized attackers. "That’s all of them inside the perimeter. But Boss—Leon Mercer wasn't among them."
Victor walked back toward Lena, his boots crunching over shattered glass. He holstered his gun and took Lena’s trembling hands into his own large, warm palms. He gently eased her fingers off the trigger.
"You're shaking," he murmured, his voice surprisingly gentle compared to the violence he had just unleashed.
"I’ve never killed a man before," Lena whispered, her breathing ragged.
Victor pulled her closer, his thumb stroking the side of her jawline, brushing away a smudge of gunsmoke. "You killed an assassin who came to slaughter us in our sleep. Remember that."
Lena looked up into his dark, mesmerizing eyes. For a heartbeat, the danger and the gunfire faded, replaced by an electric tension that had nothing to do with survival.
"Victor," Dmitri interrupted grimly from behind them, holding up a radio retrieved from the lead mercenary. "You need to hear this."
Dmitri pressed play. Clara Whitmore's voice crackled through the speaker:
*"Leon, confirm the target is down. If Victor is dead, my father is ready to sign the transfer of the Romano shipping docks at dawn. And make sure Hayes's daughter does not survive the night. She knows too much about her father's research."*
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Lena froze. "My father's research? What does she mean?"
Victor’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked violently in his cheek. "It means your father wasn't killed over pharmaceutical trials, Lena. He was killed because of a weaponized chemical formula the Whitmores wanted to buy—and my family refused to let them have."
