Chapter 10 - The Battle of the Service Wing
The fighting reached the kitchen corridor within three minutes.
The heavy oak service doors rattled under the impact of a breaching ram. *BAM! BAM!* Splinters flew across the tile floor.
Outside in the hallway, I heard Roman’s voice, sharp and authoritative, returning fire with a submachine gun. “Hold the staircase! Don't let them secure the kitchen access! If they get behind us, we’re finished!”
*CRACK!*
The double doors flew off their hinges.
Three men in tactical gear, carrying suppressed rifles and wearing white snow camouflage, poured into the kitchen. Their barrels swept the room, looking for targets.
“PSTTTTTT!”
Marco stepped out from behind the walk-in cooler, unleashing a blinding, choking cloud of white chemical powder from the commercial fire extinguisher straight into the faces of the lead two shooters.
The men gagged, blinded, their weapons firing wildly into the ceiling, shattering light fixtures and sending plaster raining down like snow.
I didn’t hesitate.
I grabbed the heavy, long-handled ladle—the same one I had used to threaten Bruno on my first morning—dipped it deep into the boiling vat of peanut oil, and flung a shimmering arc of liquid fire directly across the lead shooter’s chest and arms.
He let out a blood-curdling shriek as the oil melted straight through his tactical vest, dropping his rifle and clawing at his skin in absolute agony.
The third intruder raised his weapon toward me. “Die, you stupid—”
*BANG!*
A single gunshot cracked from the doorway behind him. The man’s head snapped back, his body collapsing onto the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
Roman Duca stood in the doorway, his three-piece suit torn, blood dripping from a graze on his cheekbone, his smoking pistol leveled at the remaining intruders. Behind him, Bruno and Vincent moved in like reapers, finishing the job with cold, mechanical efficiency.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the hiss of steam from a punctured radiator and the groans of the dying man on the floor.
Roman lowered his weapon. He stepped over the bodies, his eyes locked entirely on me.
I was standing beside the range, covered in white fire-extinguisher dust, my hands gripped tightly around the handle of my boiling oil pot, breathing hard.
Roman stopped three feet away. He looked at the blinded, screaming intruder writhing on the tile floor, then looked up at me.
“Boiling peanut oil, Miss Sullivan?” he asked, his voice shaking with a terrifying mixture of shock and sheer awe.
“It holds heat better than water,” I answered, my voice steady despite the adrenaline roaring in my veins. “And I told you on day one: nobody messes with my kitchen.”
Bruno stepped up behind Roman, clutching his freshly bandaged shoulder, staring at the carnage on the floor.
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“God almighty,” Bruno whispered, crossing himself. “Don't ever make Ma angry. Remind me to never skip dish duty again.”
***