Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Enzo
At least three shooting positions.
Judging by the angle and spacing of the bullets, there was one at the left window on the second floor of the abandoned building, one on the right side of the third floor, and at least one more hiding at an entrance on the ground level.
Crossfire covered every inch of a sixty-degree arc in front of the road.
Classic ambush formation. Textbook Carmine Elite Squad layout.
I knew this setup too well. Twenty years ago, I was the one manning positions like these.
The low wall blocked their line of fire for now, but if they started repositioning to flank us, we had three, maybe four minutes tops.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Luca with one hand. He picked up on the first ring.
"Under attack. Road outside town, abandoned building location. At least three shooters, possibly a fourth. Get everyone here now."
"My men need fifteen minutes." Luca's voice was tight. "They just finished with another group Julian planted on the south side of town."
Fifteen minutes. Too long. Standard Elite Squad protocol was to clean up an ambush within three minutes. In fifteen minutes, backup would arrive to find nothing but an empty scene and three corpses.
"Make it fast." I hung up and shoved the phone back in my pocket.
Emily's wails tore through the back seat.
Chloe's voice came through the darkness, tight with tears, telling her it was okay, mama's here.
But her voice shook. Badly. In the rearview mirror, I caught her face—pale, lips pressed tight.
She had Emily wrapped completely in her arms, body curved into a shell, her back toward the window. She was using herself as a shield.
The image sent a sharp pain through my chest. I couldn't let her get hurt for me again.
I couldn't leave them in this car. The wall only blocked frontal shots. Once the shooters adjusted their positions to flank us, this vehicle would become an iron coffin.
I checked my gun. Nine rounds. Add the twelve in the spare mag at my waist—twenty-one total. Against at least three professionally trained shooters, every shot had to count. No room for waste.
I turned to look at Chloe. She was pressed into the gap in the back seat, holding Emily, her face so pale it was almost transparent. Her eyes found mine in the darkness.
"Chloe. Listen to me. Stay in the car. Don't move. No matter what happens, don't come out."
I reached for the door handle.
Chloe grabbed my arm.
"You go out there, and you're dead. You're wounded."
She was worried about me.
In this moment, when a bullet could punch through her skull at any second, she was worried about my injuries. The realization detonated something hot in my chest, so hot my eyes stung.
I gripped her hand, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Her skin was ice cold, covered in a fine sheen of sweat. My lips stayed on her forehead for maybe two seconds. Possibly the most indulgent two seconds of my life.
"I promise you," I looked into her eyes, keeping my voice as steady as I could, "I'll protect you and Emily. And I'll come back alive."
I didn't know if I could do it. But I knew if I didn't say it, she wouldn't let go. And if she didn't let go, I couldn't get out. Then all three of us would die in this car.
Chloe's fingers released. I shoved the door open and rolled out.
Night air rushed in. The cold hit my face and snapped my scattered focus back together.
I crouched behind the wall, scanning the abandoned building through a gap in the top.
The moonlight was faint, but enough to make out the window positions.
The second-floor left window showed slight movement.
The third-floor right one had gone quiet. They were adjusting positions.
I took a deep breath, then leaned out from the left side of the wall and fired two shots at the third-floor right window. Not to hit anyone—to suppress. Immediately, I bent low and moved fast, running a dozen meters along the wall before setting up in a new firing position at another gap.
Their return fire came. Bullets struck the wall, spraying stone chips. One grazed my ear. Close. But they'd exposed the ground-floor shooter's position. He was behind a blown-out window frame to the left of the main entrance.
I waited two seconds, waited for him to change mags, then aimed at that frame. One shot.
After a muffled thud, that position went quiet.
One down. At least two left.
The gunshot wound on my shoulder that hadn't fully healed started throbbing. My left arm had no strength. My abdomen felt swollen and tight. But I couldn't worry about that. I could only pray the adrenaline would hold out a while longer.
I continued moving along the wall, trying to circle around to the building's side. If I could reach a side entrance, I could clear them floor by floor from inside. But I'd barely moved twenty meters.
Chloe screamed from the car.
My heart contracted into a fist. All the blood in my body rushed to my head in that single second.
A fourth shooter! I'd miscalculated. He wasn't in the building. He'd been mobile the whole time, flanking through the darkness to the other side of the vehicle.
I abandoned cover.
It was a stupid decision. Leaving the wall meant exposing myself completely to the two remaining shooters in the building. But my brain wasn't calculating anymore. My brain only registered Chloe's scream.
I ran straight toward the car.
A bullet hit my shoulder.
The round punched into the back left side. The impact was so hard my entire upper body lurched forward. I nearly went face-first into the pavement. Pain exploded from my shoulder and burned down my arm to my fingertips. My left hand went dead.
But my legs kept moving. I ground my teeth and kept running. The old wound and new wound in my left arm layered together. The whole limb didn't feel like mine anymore—heavy, numb, burning. But right now, compared to those two in the car, nothing else mattered.
I spun and fired two shots in the direction of the gunman. No idea if I hit anything, but the shots bought me a few seconds of suppression. Enough to reach the car.
I got to the vehicle and saw the man in black. He'd circled from the right side to the rear door, one hand gripping Chloe's collar, dragging her out of the car, the other hand jamming a gun against her temple. Chloe still clutched Emily tight. The child's cries pierced through every other sound.
"Drop the gun." The man's voice was ice cold. His accent carried a Sicilian flavor—old soldier out of Palermo. "You die, they walk."
I stopped at the front of the car, about five meters away. The gun was still in my hand, muzzle pointed at the ground. I could see Chloe's face. Pale. Streaked with tears. Eyes locked on me. Her lips moved, saying something, but Emily's cries drowned her out.
I read her lips. She was saying "don't."
I looked at her. Then the gun pressed to her temple.
Then I dropped my weapon. The metal hit the asphalt with a sharp clatter in the night.
"Enzo, don't!" Chloe's voice finally cut through Emily's crying, sharp and torn. "What are you doing! Pick up the gun!"
"Let them go. Your target is me. They have nothing to do with this. Let them go, and you can do whatever you want with me."
The man stared at me for two seconds. In those two seconds, he was assessing whether I had any other weapons hidden on me. I let him look. I raised my uninjured hand high and waved the other one to show him the gunshot wound.
Then he moved the gun away from Chloe's temple and turned it toward me.
"Walk out. To the middle of the clearing."
I took a step forward.
Chloe struggled violently in the man's grip. Her eyes were so red they looked ready to bleed. She was cursing, shouting, crying. I heard the fear in her voice. That fear wasn't for herself. It was for me.
She was afraid I would die. That was enough. That was enough.
I took another step. Two more steps would put me dead center in the clearing. If the sniper upstairs fired now, I'd have nowhere to hide.
But if this was the price for Chloe and Emily to survive, I'd pay it.
The man raised his gun, barrel aimed at my chest. At this range, one squeeze of the trigger and the bullet would tear straight through my heart.
But in that instant, Chloe moved.
She pulled Emily tighter into her arms, freed up one leg, and kicked hard at the back of the man's knee. She didn't have much strength—nothing compared to these battlefield veterans. But her angle was vicious, hitting the most vulnerable ligament behind the kneecap.
Chloe created a perfect opening. The man's knee buckled, and his whole center of gravity pitched forward.
One second of opportunity.
I launched myself, rolled, grabbed the gun from the ground, and pulled the trigger. Hit him square in the chest. The man's body was already falling backward before he could react.
When I pushed myself up from the ground, the gunshot wound in my left shoulder tore with searing pain. But I didn't have time to care. Chloe was on her knees holding Emily, trembling all over. She looked up at me, face covered in tears, lips shaking.
"Don't come over!" I shouted. Because she was standing up. Her eyes told me she wanted to run toward me. But the space between her position and mine was open ground with no cover, and there was still at least one sniper upstairs. "Get down! Stay there!"
Too late.
She was already on her feet. She took a step toward me.
The gun upstairs fired.
I threw myself forward. With every bit of strength I had left, I slammed into Chloe from the side. My arms wrapped around her and Emily, my body rotating a hundred and eighty degrees, my back toward the direction of the shot.
The bullet hit my abdomen.
It felt like a red-hot iron rod shoved into my gut. Then came a deeper, heavier sensation of collapse, like someone had opened all the valves in my body and drained out all the blood at once.