Chapter 4 - The Ambush
The choice was taken out of my hands before I could even draw breath to answer.
The front windows of Ristorante Bellagio shattered in a deafening cascade of glass.
"Down!" Vincent roared, lunging forward with terrifying speed. He slammed his body against mine, tackling us both to the floor just as a hail of automatic gunfire chewed through the wooden booths and tore the crystal chandelier from the ceiling.
Glass rained down like deadly hail. Shouts echoed from the street outside—harsh, unfamiliar voices barking orders in the language of a rival syndicate that wanted the Thorne dynasty bled dry down to the last drop.
"Mateo!" Vincent yelled over the roar of gunfire, pulling a heavy black firearm from a concealed holster beneath his suit jacket without a second's hesitation.
"Securing the perimeter!" Mateo shouted back, already returning fire through the shattered front frame, his bodyguards forming an impenetrable wall of steel and lead around us.
I curled into a tight ball on the floor, my hands clamped over my ears as the smell of cordite and burning wood filled the air. The cozy, elegant restaurant had transformed into a war zone in a matter of seconds. All those warnings my mother gave me—the dragons, the violence, the inescapable pull of this world—weren't fairy tales. They were reality crashing down around me.
"Look at me, Mara!" Vincent commanded, his hand gripping my shoulder firmly to drag my attention away from the chaos. His face was inches from mine, cool, focused, and utterly fearless amid the carnage.
"Are we going to die?" I cried out, tears of frustration and terror stinging my eyes.
"Not today," Vincent said, his voice vibrating with absolute authority. He grabbed my hand, pressing the heavy steel grip of a smaller, pearl-handled pistol into my palm. My fingers closed around it instinctively, the metal freezing cold against my skin. "Listen to me. They aren't just here to wreck my restaurant. They tracked the whispers. They know you're connected to Elena."
A bullet punched through the table inches from my head, sending wood splinters flying.
Vincent didn't flinch. With one fluid motion, he pulled me up, using his massive frame as a shield as he navigated us through the labyrinth of overturned tables toward the kitchen exit.
"Move!" he barked to Mateo, who was covering our retreat with suppressive fire.
We burst through the kitchen doors just as a heavy incendiary device hissed onto the dining room floor, sparking a bright, consuming fire that began to devour the linens and wood.
The alley behind the restaurant was dark, slick with rain, and bathed in the red-and-blue strobe lights of approaching police cruisers—or perhaps men who wore badges but answered to the highest bidder in the underworld. An idling black armored SUV waited by the back exit, its engine rumbling like a caged beast.
Vincent shoved me into the back seat, sliding in right behind me and slamming the heavy armored door shut just as bullets pinged harmlessly against the reinforced plating.
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"Drive!" Vincent shouted to the driver.
The SUV surged forward, tearing down the alleyway and leaving the burning ruins of Bellagio behind in the rain.
