Chapter 6 - The Stolen Heir
The sheer force of the explosion threw me violently against the heavy oak wine racks.
Hundreds of expensive bottles shattered against the stone floor, flooding the cellar with the overwhelming scent of red wine.
Dante did not even flinch as the ground shook violently beneath his expensive leather shoes.
He fired two rapid shots, but David had already scrambled backward into the safety of a hidden drainage tunnel.
"Silas!" Dante roared into his earpiece, but the radio channel only returned a wall of buzzing static.
He grabbed my hand tightly, pulling me through the treacherous sea of broken glass with terrifying speed.
We rushed back up the stone stairs, emerging into a mansion that had been transformed into an active war zone.
Thick smoke billowed down the grand hallways, and the deafening sound of automatic gunfire echoed from the east wing.
Dante became a devastating force of nature, coldly and efficiently eliminating two masked intruders blocking our path.
I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto his jacket, trusting this ruthless killer to keep me alive.
We finally reached the reinforced steel door of the master panic room, which had been completely blown off its titanium hinges.
Silas, Dante's most trusted lieutenant, was lying bleeding on the marble floor with a severe bullet wound in his shoulder.
Dante dropped to his knees, his frantic hands searching the smoke-filled room for his son.
The small emergency cot in the corner was entirely empty, save for a single plastic dinosaur dropped on the mattress.
"They took him, Boss," Silas coughed, gripping his bleeding shoulder in absolute agony.
"A team of ten men hit the wall with C4 explosives while we were completely distracted by the cellar alarms."
Dante let out a raw, devastating roar of pure anguish that shattered my heart into a million pieces.
He turned to me, his hands covered in his best friend's blood, his eyes entirely hollowed out by grief.
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Before he could speak, a live video feed suddenly popped up on the massive security monitor mounted on the wall.
David was smiling sadistically into the camera, holding a terrified, crying Leo tightly by the collar of his pajamas.
