Chapter 8 - Blood on the Limestone Stairs
The dining room erupted into a war zone of deafening gunfire and flying wood splinters.
Carmine did not duck or scramble like the panicked older men diving beneath the linen table.
He drew a nickel-plated .45 automatic from his waistband, leaned around his chair, and fired a round that caught an Ironstone shooter in the throat.
"The library exit is covered by their flankers!" Elena yelled over the roar of automatic rifle fire.
She grabbed Carmine by the collar of his suit jacket, using her body as an armored wedge to haul him backward toward the service pantry.
A burst of nine-millimeter rounds chewed into the heavy mahogany doorframe right above their heads.
"Sterling is retreating toward the grand foyer!" Carmine yelled back, ejecting his spent magazine and slapping a fresh one home.
"He has the perimeter codes to the main gate!"
"If he gets to the gatehouse, his armored gun-trucks will breach the property within three minutes!" Elena warned.
She kicked open the service pantry door, exposing a narrow servants' passage lined with utility pipes and copper pots.
"Follow me!" Elena ordered, taking point without hesitation.
Carmine moved with her, his athletic build and ruthless composure matching her military pace step for step.
They burst out onto the second-floor gallery overlooking the grand limestone staircase of the manor.
Below them, Salvatore Duca and Colonel Sterling were sprinting across the marble foyer toward the heavy oak exit doors.
Sterling turned back, raising a compact MP5 submachine gun toward the mezzanine where Carmine and Elena appeared.
"Get down!" Elena shouted, grabbing Carmine’s shoulder and pulling him behind a marble pillar just as a hail of bullets chipped stone into their eyes.
Carmine wiped a streak of white limestone dust from his brow, his breathing hard and deliberate.
"The chandelier cables are anchored to the central winch on your left!" Carmine shouted, pointing to a heavy brass mechanism beside the balustrade.
Elena did not hesitate to understand his tactical plan.
She leaned out from behind the pillar, firing three rapid rounds into the heavy brass release pin of the chandelier winch.
The gear teeth sheared with a shriek of tearing metal.
Above the grand staircase, the massive two-ton crystal and wrought-iron chandelier dropped like a falling star.
It plummeted forty feet, crashing down squarely onto the bottom steps with the force of an artillery shell.
The explosion of shattered glass, twisted iron, and flying marble pulverized the staircase beneath it.
Two of Sterling’s trailing mercenaries were crushed instantly beneath the iron framework.
Salvatore was thrown backward by the shockwave, his double-breasted suit shredded by flying glass as he slammed into the wall.
Sterling, however, rolled with the impact like the seasoned operator he was, scrambling across the broken glass toward the front doors.
Elena leaped over the shattered balustrade, sliding down the brass banister and dropping twelve feet to the marble floor below.
She landed in a perfect combat roll, coming up on one knee with her Glock leveled directly at Sterling’s back.
"Drop it, Sterling!" Elena commanded, her voice cutting through the ringing haze of gunpowder smoke.
Sterling spun around, his hands raised, but his mouth twisted into a bloody, arrogant sneer.
"You think you’re saving this criminal, Vance?" Sterling spat, wiping blood from his ear.
"Carmine Duca’s family financed the very logistics company that hired Ironstone to clear the pipeline in Iraq!"
"Your precious brother’s medical bills are being paid with the exact same blood money that murdered your unit!"
Elena stood motionless, her finger resting on the cold curved trigger of her weapon.
Behind her, Carmine stepped carefully down through the debris of the collapsed chandelier, his face pale and dark with an emotion she had never seen before.
"He's lying, Elena," Carmine said, his voice quiet, steady, and deadly.
"Ask him where the ledger is, Sergeant!" Sterling taunted, backing slowly toward the shattered front doorway.
"Ask Carmine why his father’s offshore foundation holds twenty percent of Ironstone’s shell equity!"
"He bought your loyalty with the blood of your own dead squad!"
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Elena did not lower her weapon, but the tip of the barrel trembled by a millimeter as the words struck deep into her scarred heart.
Outside in the mist, the low, mechanical drone of an approaching heavy gunship rattled the thick limestone walls of the estate.
