Chapter 18 - The Ambush at St. Jude's
The shockwave threw me violently to the floor.
Splinters of oak and shards of stained glass rained down through the darkness like shrapnel. The acrid stench of high-grade thermite filled the nave, instantly followed by the blinding sweep of green tactical laser sights cutting through the billowing smoke.
"Down! Lena, get down!" Julian screamed, diving across the aisle and throwing his body over mine.
*Crack-crack-crack!*
The sharp, rhythmic staccato of suppressed submachine guns tore through the silence of the church. Heavy rounds ripped into the wooden pews, chewing the antique timber to shreds and sending clouds of pulverized stone billowing from the altar.
"Move! In the crypt! Clear the targets!" a harsh, New York-accented voice barked through the smoke. "Carmine wants the girl breathing! Put two in the old man's head!"
They weren't here to negotiate. Carmine Lucchese had used Julian as a hound to flush me out into the open.
"Julian, move!" I yelled, scrambling across the floor toward the marble staircase leading down to the crypt.
Julian groaned, clutching his left shoulder. Dark, glistening blood was already soaking through his green field jacket. "I'm hit... Lena, run!"
"I'm not leaving you!" I shouted, grabbing his collar and hauling him behind the heavy marble baptismal font. Bullets chipped violently at the stone above our heads, showering us with limestone dust.
Four tactical mercenaries, clad in matte-black body armor and night-vision goggles, fanned out across the nave, their rifles leveled with cold, professional efficiency. We had nowhere to run. The heavy double doors were breached, and the rear fire exit was chained shut.
One of the shooters stepped around the baptismal font, his rifle aimed directly at Julian’s head. He raised his gloved hand to signal the others.
"Found the rat," the man said.
I lunged forward with everything I had, thrusting the diamond hairpin straight up into the exposed flesh between his collar and helmet.
The steel tip sank deep. The mercenary let out a gurgling shriek, dropping his rifle and clutching his throat as blood sprayed across the floor. But the other three operators instantly swung their weapons toward me.
"Bitch!" one snarled, leveling his muzzle at my chest.
I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact.
*BOOM.*
The shot didn't come from inside the church.
The entire western stained glass rose window blew apart in a violent shower of ruby and sapphire crystal as a sleek, armored matte-black SUV smashed through the exterior stone wall, crushing two stone buttresses and skidding sideways across the center aisle with a screech of shredded rubber.
Before the dust could even settle, the driver’s side door was kicked off its hinges.
Adrien Varelli stepped out of the wreckage.
He wasn't wearing a suit. He wore a tactical vest over a black tactical turtleneck, his face smeared with soot, his pale gray eyes burning with a demonic, terrifying fury that seemed to freeze the very temperature of the room. In his hands were two black SIG Sauer pistols.
Beside him, Dante surged forward with a customized Benelli shotgun, racking the slide with a metallic *shk-shk*.
"Clear the room," Adrien ordered, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of all human emotion.
What followed was twenty seconds of pure, unadulterated execution.
Adrien moved with a horrifying, fluid lethality. The three mercenaries barely had time to adjust their aim before Adrien closed the distance. He didn't take cover. He advanced like an inevitable force of nature.
*Bang. Bang.*
Two rounds took the first shooter through the eye slit of his helmet. The second operator tried to raise a sidearm, but Adrien grabbed the barrel with his bare hand, redirecting the shot into the floor, broke the man’s wrist with a sickening snap, and put a single hollow-point round through his jaw.
Dante fired twice, the heavy shotgun blasts lifting the third mercenary off his feet and throwing his limp body over the shattered communion rail.
Silence descended upon the ruined church, heavy and suffocating.
Smoke drifted through the moonlight piercing the broken roof. Adrien stood in the center of the carnage, his chest rising and falling slowly. The scent of copper and cordite hung thick in the air.
Then, his eyes found me.
The icy wrath on his face fractured into pure, desperate panic. He dropped his weapons onto the blood-soaked floor and rushed toward the baptismal font, dropping to his knees beside me.
"Lena!" His large hands caught my shoulders, checking my arms, my neck, his fingers frantic and trembling. "Where are you hit? Tell me where you're hurt!"
"I'm... I'm not hurt," I gasped, my voice barely audible above the ringing in my ears.
Adrien let out a ragged, shuddering breath, pulling me hard against his chest. His heart was hammering with violent intensity, his sensory overload spiking from the sheer volume of gunfire and adrenaline. The moment my forehead pressed against the crook of his neck, his trembling began to subside, his body greedily drinking in the soothing silence my touch provided.
"I told you," he whispered against my hair, his voice breaking with raw, possessive agony. "I told you never to step out of my reach. Why did you run, Lena? Why?"
Before I could answer, a weak cough sounded from behind the stone font.
Adrien’s posture instantly froze.
He slowly pulled back from me, turning his gaze toward the wounded man slumped against the marble.
Julian Reyes looked up, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his pale face smeared with dirt. His eyes locked onto Adrien Varelli.
Adrien didn't move. He didn't draw a weapon. But the color drained completely from his face, leaving his skin as pale as marble. For the first time since I had met him, I saw genuine, unmasked shock paralyze Chicago’s most ruthless Don.
"You," Adrien whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion I couldn't decipher. "Julian."
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Julian pulled his lips back in a bloody, defiant sneer. "You should have aimed for my head twenty years ago, Varelli."
***