Chapter 7 - Checkmate
"Adrian Bellini," Victor Vance said smoothly, stepping casually into the vault as if greeting old friends at a cocktail party. "And the little ghost herself. I must admit, when my men reported that apartment fire in Seattle, I assumed the bloodline finally ended."
Adrian slowly stepped in front of Claire, shielding her body with his own while his right hand hovered near his holster. "Your war ended twenty-four years ago, Vance. You lost."
"Did I?" Vance smiled, a cold, humorless expression that didn't reach his eyes. "Look around you, boy. You walked right into my private vault, locked inside a cliffside fortress where no one—not your guards, not the police—will ever find your bodies."
"You think you're the only one who planned ahead?" Adrian's voice was dangerously calm.
Vance raised an eyebrow, amused. "Oh? And what, pray tell, is your brilliant backup plan? A dramatic rescue by your little mafia foot soldiers?"
"Marcus," Adrian said quietly into his collar comms.
Suddenly, the overhead emergency lights in the mansion began to strobe violently. A deafening series of concussive flash-bang explosions rocked the upper levels of the estate, followed by the rapid, heavy gunfire of a coordinated assault echoing down through the stone ventilation shafts.
Vance's mercenaries instantly panicked, turning toward the hallway as smoke began to billow under the vault door.
"Now!" Adrian yelled.
Adrian lunged forward, tackling the nearest guard to the ground and ripping the assault rifle from his hands. Marcus and two other Bellini operatives swarmed into the vault from the secret intake tunnel behind them, unleashing a barrage of rubber and lead that neutralized Vance's guards in seconds.
Victor Vance stumbled backward, his composure entirely shattered as he hit the edge of a mahogany filing cabinet.
Adrian stood over him, the barrel of his rifle pointed directly at Vance's chest. The air in the vault was thick with cordite smoke and dust.
"It's over, Victor," Adrian whispered, his voice shaking with two decades of accumulated fury. "You failed."
Vance let out a raspy, bitter laugh, blood trickling from a scratch on his temple. "You can kill me, Adrian... but you'll never kill what I set in motion. The network is already moving. Another team is already on their way to Bellini Manor... right to your little daughter."
Adrian’s face went completely blank. A terrifying, primal terror flashed in his eyes.
"Marcus!" Adrian roared into his comms. "Status on the Manor!"
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"Boss! We have an incoming breach at the estate perimeter!" Marcus's voice crackled frantically through the static. "A secondary strike team bypassed the main gates! They're inside the house!"
Claire’s blood ran cold. Sofia.
