Chapter 4 - Ambush on 18th Street
Elena stared at the open briefcase for three agonizing seconds before uncocking her Glock and holstering it at her lower back.
"Make the call," she said.
Carmine nodded once toward Dante, who pulled an encrypted satellite phone from his coat and pressed a single speed-dial button.
"Execute transfer protocol alpha," Dante spoke into the receiver. "Move the patient now."
Elena walked over to the kitchen counter, picked up a pen with slightly shaking fingers, and scrawled her signature across the contract.
The moment the ink dried, the sharp crack of a high-caliber rifle shattered the front window of the apartment.
Glass exploded inward in a glittering shower of deadly shards.
A heavy bullet ripped through the wall an inch above Carmine's ear, burying itself deep into the plaster behind him.
Elena did not scream; her combat instincts took over before the sound of the shot had finished reverberating through the alleyway.
She lunged across the small table, slamming her shoulder into Carmine's chest and tackling him flat onto the linoleum floor.
A second shot tore through the back of the wooden chair where Carmine had been seated a split-second earlier.
"Sniper on the brick warehouse across the alley!" Elena shouted, keeping her body pressed low over Carmine's torso.
Dante drew a suppressed automatic pistol from beneath his armpit, dropping to one knee behind the kitchen island.
"They followed us," Dante growled, blood dripping from a small glass cut on his cheek.
"Salvatore's spotters," Carmine said calmly, his breathing remarkably even beneath Elena's protective weight.
"They didn't want this meeting to conclude."
Elena reached down to her ankle, pulling a secondary tactical knife she always kept strapped beneath her work pants.
"How many exit points does this building have?" Carmine asked, his voice steady against the floorboards.
"Front stairwell, fire escape, and the grease chute down to the mechanic's garage," Elena replied rapidly.
Another round chewed through the kitchen cabinetry, showering them with splinters and dry oats.
"The fire escape is in the sniper's field of fire," Elena assessed, analyzing the bullet trajectory.
"Dante, lay down three rounds of suppressing fire toward the fourth floor of the brick warehouse on three."
"On three?" Dante asked, blinking away the blood from his brow.
"One, two, three!" Elena yelled.
Dante leaned around the edge of the kitchen island, firing three rapid rounds through the shattered glass into the darkness outside.
The sniper paused for half a second to adjust his cover behind the industrial brick ledge.
That half-second was all Elena needed.
She grabbed Carmine by the collar of his cashmere coat, hauling the two-hundred-pound mob boss to his feet with raw leverage.
She shoved him into the narrow interior hallway where the brick walls were double-thick and out of sight from the alley.
"Move toward the basement," Elena commanded, taking point with her Glock raised in a high-retention firing stance.
They sprinted down the narrow back stairwell as the heavy boots of a three-man breach team echoed from the front entrance below.
"Breachers coming up the main staircase," Dante warned from behind, checking his magazine.
"They aren't here to talk," Elena whispered, stopping at the second-floor landing.
She reached out, grabbed a heavy fire extinguisher mounted to the wall, and unhooked it with a violent wrench of her wrist.
She pulled the safety pin with her teeth and set the canister on the top step.
As the first masked gunman rounded the staircase landing with a submachine gun raised, Elena kicked the extinguisher down the stairs.
The heavy metal cylinder tumbled down, striking the lead gunman squarely in the shins.
Before he could recover his footing, Elena leaned over the banister and fired two rounds directly into the valve head.
The pressurized chemical foam detonated in a blinding white cloud of toxic powder and deafening noise.
The two following gunmen stumbled backward, choking and blind in the confined stairwell.
Elena leaped down the last four steps, using her forward momentum to drive her boot into the chest of the second attacker.
He collapsed backward into his partner, both men tumbling down to the concrete basement floor in a tangled heap.
Carmine watched from the landing above as Elena moved with terrifying grace.
She disarmed the lead man with a single downward wrist snap, kicked his weapon across the floor, and neutralized him with a short elbow strike.
Within four seconds, all three breachers were unconscious and bleeding onto the cold basement concrete.
Elena stood over them, her chest heaving slightly, her weapon trained on the final doorway leading to the alley.
She turned to Carmine, wiping a smudge of gray drywall dust from her forehead.
"Your perimeter security is an absolute embarrassment, Mr. Duca," she said coldly.
Carmine brushed the plaster dust from his lapels, his eyes gleaming with complete satisfaction.
"Which is precisely why you are now receiving double your agreed fee, Sergeant Vance," Carmine replied.
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They kicked open the rear garage door, where Dante's second armored sedan was idling quietly in the rain.
Elena climbed into the back seat beside the syndicate boss, leaving her old life behind in the smoking ruins of her apartment.
