Chapter 11 - THE SIEGE OF THE ESTATE
The roaring explosion at the front gates shook the very foundations of the mansion. Dust rained down from the kitchen ceiling, coating the granite countertops in a fine, gray film.
"Marco, get Sarah and Toby to the sub-basement!" Vincent commanded, his voice slicing through the blaring alarms with lethal authority. "Lock the blast doors. Do not let them out until I give the all-clear."
"I'm not leaving you, Boss!" Marco argued, drawing his sidearm, his eyes wide with adrenaline. "Falcone has brought an army. You can't hold the main hall alone!"
"I won't be alone," Vincent snarled, racking the slide of his pistol. "I have forty men on this estate. I am going to make Don Falcone regret the day he ever heard the name Hale."
Vincent turned to me. The softness that had been in his eyes moments ago was entirely gone. He was the devil again, the ruthless boss of the Chicago underworld preparing for absolute war.
"Go, Sarah," Vincent ordered, his tone leaving zero room for debate. "Hide."
Before I could respond, the heavy wooden doors of the kitchen burst open.
Toby stood in the doorway, his eyes wide with terror, clutching his blue lunchbox. The two guards assigned to him were right behind, practically dragging him.
"Mom!" Toby cried, breaking free from the guard's grip and sprinting across the kitchen, burying his face into my stomach.
I dropped to my knees, wrapping my arms around him, my heart breaking at the sheer terror in his small body.
"I've got you, baby," I whispered fiercely, pressing a kiss to his hair. "I've got you."
"Boss, they breached the courtyard!" one of the guards yelled, breathless. "They brought two armored personnel carriers. They're shredding the front line!"
Vincent didn't flinch. "Hold the grand foyer. Use the marble pillars for cover. Do not let them reach the staircase."
Vincent looked at me one last time. A silent vow passed between us.
Then he sprinted out of the kitchen, charging toward the sounds of deafening gunfire echoing from the front of the house.
"Come on, Sarah!" Marco yelled, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. "We have to move now!"
I scooped Toby into my arms, ignoring the agonizing burn in my muscles, and followed Marco down the narrow service hallway toward the sub-basement door.
The mansion sounded like a warzone. The continuous, terrifying roar of automatic weapons fire, the shattering of priceless glass, and the screams of dying men echoed through the opulent halls.
We reached the heavy steel door leading to the sub-basement. Marco punched in a code, hauled the door open, and shoved us inside.
"Get down the stairs!" Marco ordered, holding the door open.
I stumbled down the steep concrete steps into the freezing, damp darkness of the cellar. The air smelled of old wine and wet earth.
I expected Marco to follow us down and lock the door from the inside.
Instead, he stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at me with a grim, determined expression.
"Lock the deadbolt from the inside, Sarah," Marco instructed, his voice tight.
"Marco, what are you doing?" I panicked, setting Toby down. "Vincent said you had to stay with us!"
"Vincent needs me," Marco said simply, pulling a spare magazine from his vest. "If Falcone breaches the foyer, the Boss is dead. I'm not letting my brother die alone."
"Marco, no!" I pleaded, tears streaming down my face.
"Lock the door, Sarah," Marco smiled faintly. "Keep the kid quiet."
He slammed the heavy steel door shut.
The loud CLANG echoed in the dark cellar. I heard the external lock engage, followed immediately by Marco's heavy boots sprinting away down the hallway above.
We were completely alone in the dark.
I fumbled blindly for the heavy iron deadbolt on the inside of the door and threw it into place, my hands shaking violently.
I sank to the cold concrete floor, pulling Toby into my lap, rocking him back and forth in the pitch black.
"Are we going to die, Mom?" Toby whispered, his little voice barely audible over the muffled sounds of the battle raging directly above us.
"No," I lied smoothly, pressing my cheek against the top of his head. "We are completely safe down here, baby. Vincent is going to protect us."
I prayed I was right.
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, using the weak glow of the screen to illuminate the small, dusty space beneath the stairs.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
The gunfire above didn't cease. It intensified. The heavy, concussive thuds of grenades shook dust from the ceiling, raining down on our heads. The Hale syndicate was fighting fiercely, but Falcone had brought overwhelming force.
Suddenly, the gunfire directly above the cellar door stopped.
A heavy, suffocating silence descended on the hallway outside.
My breath caught in my throat. I turned off my phone screen, plunging us back into total darkness. I clamped a hand over Toby's mouth, shushing him silently.
Heavy footsteps slowly approached the steel door at the top of the stairs.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Someone grabbed the handle and rattled it violently.
The heavy iron deadbolt held firm.
"It's locked from the inside, Don Falcone," a harsh, Russian-accented voice muffled through the steel.
My blood ran cold.
Don Falcone himself was standing on the other side of the door.
"Blow it," an older, raspy voice commanded with chilling indifference. "I want the woman alive. I want to look into her eyes when I skin her son."
I didn't breathe. I didn't think. Pure, primal maternal instinct hijacked my brain.
"Toby," I whispered frantically in the pitch black, grabbing his hand. "We have to go deeper into the cellar. Now."
I dragged him away from the stairs, navigating blindly through the maze of wine racks and stacked crates. We reached the far back wall of the cellar, pressing ourselves into a small, damp alcove behind a massive oak wine barrel.
BOOM.
The explosion blew the heavy steel door completely off its hinges.
The metal groaned and warped, crashing violently down the concrete stairs.
Blinding tactical flashlights pierced the darkness of the cellar as three heavily armed mercenaries poured down the stairs, sweeping the room with the laser sights of their rifles.
"Clear the corners!" one of them shouted.
Following slowly behind the mercenaries, stepping delicately over the ruined steel door, was an older man in a pristine, tailored charcoal suit. He walked with a silver-tipped cane, his face weathered and scarred, his eyes dead and pitiless.
Don Falcone.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, leaning on his cane, scanning the cellar.
"Sarah Miller," Falcone’s raspy voice echoed through the damp room. "You cost me my son ten years ago. You cost me my daughter tonight. You cannot hide in the dark forever."
I squeezed my eyes shut, holding Toby so tightly against my chest I could feel his frantic heartbeat syncing with my own.
"Find them," Falcone ordered his men.
The mercenaries spread out, their flashlight beams cutting through the aisles of wine racks, getting closer and closer to our hiding spot behind the barrel.
I looked frantically around the small alcove. There was no exit. No weapon. No hope.
The beam of a flashlight swept across the floor, stopping inches from the toe of my shoe.
"Boss," a mercenary called out, stepping toward the barrel. "I think they're—"
Before the mercenary could finish his sentence, the lights in the cellar suddenly flickered and died.
The tactical flashlights mounted on the mercenaries' rifles simultaneously shorted out, plunging the cellar back into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
"What happened to the lights?!" Falcone barked, his voice laced with sudden panic.
"EMP, Boss," a mercenary stammered in the dark. "Something fried our optics."
A chilling, metallic scraping sound echoed from the far corner of the cellar, opposite our hiding spot.
"Don Falcone," a deep, vibrating voice rumbled in the pitch black.
It sounded like the devil himself speaking from the shadows.
"Who's there?!" a mercenary yelled, firing a blind burst into the darkness.
The muzzle flashes illuminated the cellar for a fraction of a second.
In that flashing stroboscopic light, I saw him.
Standing in the center of the aisle, bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to his side, holding two massive, suppressed pistols.
Vincent Hale.
He hadn't died in the foyer. He had come for us.
"You brought an army to my house, Falcone," Vincent growled in the darkness. "But you forgot one thing."
"What's that?!" Falcone sneered blindly.
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"I know how to fight in the dark," Vincent whispered.
The muzzle flashes of Vincent's dual pistols erupted like lightning in the cellar.
