Page 109 of The Mafia King's Lost Son
“Dante.” Scarlett’s voice cuts through the noise, tight with terror. “I can’t see Luca. Where is he?”
“Stay behind cover.”
“But I need to?—”
“Stay. Behind. Cover.” I don’t have room for gentleness right now. I don’t even have the capacity to comfort her when every second of distraction could get us both killed. “I’ll get him. Trust me.”
She doesn’t respond, but she stays put, and that’s enough.
I lean out and fire again, catching a shooter who was trying to advance from behind a fallen column. He goes down screaming, clutching his stomach, and one of my men finishes him with a headshot before he can crawl back to cover.
The cathedral has become a slaughterhouse. Blood pools on the ancient stone floors, mixing with melting snow that drifts in through the shattered windows. The air is thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Bodies are falling on both sides, and each one of mine feels like a knife to the gut even though I know this is the cost of getting my son back. Each man volunteered knowing they might not come home. Some of them won’t.
I spot Viktor through a gap in the smoke.
He’s near the altar, using the raised platform as cover while he drags Luca toward a side exit near the old sacristy. My son is fighting him with everything he has, kicking and screaming and clawing at the arm wrapped around his chest.
Yeah, that’s it. A true son of his father and mother.
But Viktor is too strong and too desperate to let go.
“Viktor’s moving toward the east exit!” I bark into the comm. “I need that route blocked now!”
“Copy, boss. Redirecting Alpha squad.”
But Viktor’s men are providing cover fire, laying down a barrage that forces my team to stay pinned while their leader makes his escape. Bullets swallow up the stone pillars, shatter what’s left of the windows, and tear through anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the open. I watch Viktor drag my son another five feet toward that door and something inside me snaps.
I break from cover. It’s reckless and stupid. The kind of move that gets soldiers killed in training exercises and commanders court-martialed. But my son is being taken, and I can’t just hide behind a pillar while it happens. Can’t just watch as Luca disappears through that door.
A shooter pops up from behind an overturned pew, and I drop him with two rounds to the chest before he can line up a shot. Another tries to flank me from the left and I spin, fire, watch him crumple. A third gets off a burst that tears through the air inches from my head, close enough that I feel the heat of the rounds passing, and I dive behind the remnants of a confessional booth as return fire chews up the floor where I was standing.
I’m breathing hard now and my heart is hammering. But I’m still moving through the chaos.
Roy appears at my side and there’s blood running down his left arm, soaking through his jacket in a dark stain, but his gun is steady in hand and his eyes are determined. He’s been loyal since I hired him, and I know he’ll have my back.
“Shoulder?” I ask.
“Through and through. Hurts like hell but I’ll live.” He ducks as a bullet sparks off the stone above our heads. “Viktor?”
“Heading for the east exit.”
“I’ve got men moving to cut him off.”
“Not fast enough.”
We advance together, covering each other the way we’ve done since we were teenagers running errands for my father. Roy takes the right while I clear the left, and together we carve a path through Viktor’s defenders with the kind of brutality that only comes from years of fighting side by side.
I kill a man who steps out from behind a pillar, two shots to the chest, center mass just like I was taught, and I don’t slow down to watch him fall. There’s no satisfaction in it, no triumph. Just the necessity of removing an obstacle between me and my child. Another appears in my peripheral vision and Roy drops him before I can even bring my weapon around.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Just keep moving.”
The altar steps are wet with blood when we reach them. Some of it is from Viktor’s men. Some of it is from mine. I don’t let myself look at faces or let myself count our losses. There’ll be time for grief later. Right now there’s only the mission.
A burst of automatic fire forces us both to dive behind the altar itself, the heavy stone providing temporary cover while bullets chip away at the ancient carvings. I can hear Viktor shouting orders somewhere to my right, I can hear Luca crying for me, and every sound my son makes is another knife twisting in my chest.
“We need to flank them,” Roy says, checking his magazine. “I’ll go left, draw their fire. You push through.”
