Chapter 7 - THE STERLING EMPIRE FALLS
The gunfire began with the precision of an orchestrated military strike.
Richard Sterling had not waited for the FBI to knock on his door. When Thomas Cole failed to deliver the final confirmation code, Richard knew the game was over. Desperate, bankrupt, and facing life imprisonment, the patriarch of the Sterling family had gathered his personal paramilitary security detail for a suicidal assault on the Moretti estate.
“GET TO THE MEDICAL WING!” Dominic roared, sprinting up the stairs three at a time, drawing his customized assault rifle.
The third-floor hallway was filled with smoke and the deafening clatter of automatic weapons. Two of Richard’s contractors had breached the rear terrace doors and were attempting to breach the fortified medical suite where Margaret and Hannah were barricaded.
Adrian slid into the hallway, firing in controlled bursts, dropping the lead contractor. Dominic pushed forward, his fury turning him into an unstoppable force. He fired through the drywall, neutralizing the second gunman before he could prime a flashbang grenade.
Dominic kicked open the door to the medical suite.
“Hannah!”
Inside, the room was in chaos. A sniper round had shattered the bulletproof glass of the west window, spider-webbing the thick pane. Margaret was lying on the floor, shielded by the heavy steel frame of the medical bed.
Hannah was crouched over her mother, holding a discarded medical scalpel in her trembling hand, ready to fight to the death.
When Hannah saw Dominic, the scalpel fell from her fingers.
“Dominic!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck as he dropped to his knees beside her.
Dominic wrapped one powerful arm around her waist, pulling her against his body with an intensity that knocked the breath out of her. His hand tangled in her hair, pressing her face into his shoulder.
“I have you,” Dominic murmured, his voice fierce and breathless. “I have you, Hannah. You’re safe.”
“Richard is in the courtyard!” Adrian yelled from the doorway, reloading his rifle. “He’s got four heavily armored technical trucks! They’re setting explosive charges at the main power transformers!”
Dominic pulled back, looking into Hannah’s hazel eyes.
“Stay with your mother. The security shutters on this room are solid titanium. Adrian and I will finish this.”
“Be careful,” Hannah pleaded, her fingers clutching his tactical vest. “Please... don’t let him take you from me.”
Dominic’s heart hammered against his ribs. In the midst of gunfire, smoke, and blood, those simple words gave him an unshakeable purpose.
“Never,” he promised, pressing a fierce kiss to her forehead before rising to his feet.
Dominic and Adrian moved through the estate with devastating synchronization. The Moretti syndicate was fighting on their home turf. Within ten minutes, the syndicate's reinforcements completely encircled Richard Sterling’s assault force in the grand courtyard.
One by one, Richard’s mercenaries surrendered or were cut down under a barrage of crossfire.
In the center of the courtyard, standing beside a bullet-riddled black SUV, stood Richard Sterling.
The sixty-year-old billionaire looked completely unhinged. His expensive bespoke suit was covered in dust and mud. In his trembling hands, he held a detonator connected to charges wired to the estate’s structural foundation.
“MORETTI!” Richard screamed into the rain, his voice cracked with mania. “COME OUT, YOU COWARD! IF I GO DOWN, YOUR ENTIRE BLOODLINE GOES DOWN WITH ME!”
Dominic stepped out from the main arched entrance into the courtyard, walking slowly through the rain, his rifle lowered.
“Drop the switch, Richard,” Dominic said calmly.
“You destroyed everything!” Richard spat, saliva flying from his lips. “Thirty years of building this empire! Vanessa is in handcuffs! My accounts are seized! All because of a pathetic little maid and a dead wife who couldn't keep her nose out of my business!”
“You destroyed yourself,” Dominic said, closing the distance between them step by step. “You murdered Elena. You tried to murder Margaret. You stole from sick children to fund your vanity. You are not a king, Richard. You are a common thief with an expensive lawyer.”
“I’LL BLOW THIS ENTIRE ESTATE TO HELL!” Richard shrieked, his thumb hovering over the red detonator button.
*BANG.*
A single shot echoed from the third-floor balcony above.
Richard’s shoulder jerked backward, the detonator slipping from his paralyzed fingers and splashing into a puddle.
Dominic lunged forward, kicking the detonator twenty feet away and slamming Richard Sterling face-first onto the hood of the SUV, pinning his neck with his forearm.
Dominic looked up at the balcony.
Hannah Collins stood behind the iron railing, holding Dominic’s backup Sig Sauer with both hands, the barrel smoking slightly in the cold air. Adrian was standing behind her, a look of utter amazement and pride on his face.
Hannah lowered the gun, her chest heaving with adrenaline. She had fired a single, non-lethal shot that disarmed the man who had terrorized her family for three years.
Dominic looked down at Richard Sterling, whose face was pressed against the wet steel of the vehicle.
“You underestimated the women in this house, Richard,” Dominic whispered into his ear. “That was your fatal mistake.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. A convoy of thirty state police cruisers, FBI armored vehicles, and emergency medical units came roaring up the long driveway, their red and blue lights painting the rain-drenched estate in vibrant flashes of deliverance.
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The nightmare was finally over.
***