Chapter 29
DANTE
I knew Viktor would be prepared. What I didn’t expect was the immediacy of the attack. Then again, you can never be too sure with a bastard. Twenty years of violence has made my response to situations like this impulsive. Right now, that is the only reason we’re still alive.
I’m moving before the sound fully registers, shoving Scarlett behind a stone pillar as bullets rip through the wooden pews where we stood half a second ago.
Splinters explode into the air, one slicing across my cheek, but the sting barely stays.
I’m already in combat mode—gun raised, eyes sweeping the room, mind cataloging threats faster than conscious thought can keep up.
Three shooters in the left balcony and two more in the right. At least four more behind the overturned pews near the side chapel. And those are just the ones I can see through the smoke and muzzle flash.
I’d hoped Viktor wouldn’t come this prepared.
This isn’t some desperate last stand by a cornered traitor.
This is an ambush designed by someone who spent fifteen years learning exactly how I think and fight.
He knows almost all my ins and outs. But I also planned backup strategies for this outcome, too.
At least twenty men, all well-armed twice as usual. I should have checked better before we entered, but I got distracted by the idea of finding my son. At least I have other teams coming in from other directions, and we should have this sorted soon.
My team returns fire with the disciplined expertise I drilled into them over years of training and combat. The thunderous gunshots echo off the vaulted ceiling, making the whole cathedral shake with the force of it. Dust rains down from above. The stained glass shatters under the violence.
I press the comm unit in my ear. “Alpha team, concentrate fire on the balconies. Bravo, push the left flank. Charlie, status?”
Static crackles filter back, then a voice I don’t recognize. “Charlie’s pinned near the main entrance. Two down, four still fighting.”
“Hold position and keep them off our backs.”
I lean around the pillar and squeeze off three shots at a figure moving in the left balcony.
The first two spark off the iron railing, but the third catches him on the right.
He jerks backward, rifle slipping from his hands, then he’s falling.
His body hits the stone floor below with a wet thud that I’ve heard too many times, marking his end.
My snipers are earning their pay and making me proud. Through the chaos, I see another balcony shooter drop, a neat hole appearing in his forehead before he crumples out of sight. That’s two down up there. Still too many left, but we’re not backing down.
“Dante.” Scarlett’s voice cuts through the noise, tight with terror. “I can’t see Luca. Where is he?”
“Stay behind cover.”
“But I need to—”
“Stay. Behind. Cover.” I don’t have room for gentleness right now. I don’t even have the capacity to comfort her when every second of distraction could get us both killed. “I’ll get him. Trust me.”
She doesn’t respond, but she stays put, and that’s enough.
I lean out and fire again, catching a shooter who was trying to advance from behind a fallen column. He goes down screaming, clutching his stomach, and one of my men finishes him with a headshot before he can crawl back to cover.
The cathedral has become a slaughterhouse.
Blood pools on the ancient stone floors, mixing with melting snow that drifts in through the shattered windows.
The air is thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder.
Bodies are falling on both sides, and each one of mine feels like a knife to the gut even though I know this is the cost of getting my son back.
Each man volunteered knowing they might not come home. Some of them won’t.
I spot Viktor through a gap in the smoke.
He’s near the altar, using the raised platform as cover while he drags Luca toward a side exit near the old sacristy. My son is fighting him with everything he has, kicking and screaming and clawing at the arm wrapped around his chest.
Yeah, that’s it. A true son of his father and mother.
But Viktor is too strong and too desperate to let go.
“Viktor’s moving toward the east exit!” I bark into the comm. “I need that route blocked now!”
“Copy, boss. Redirecting Alpha squad.”
But Viktor’s men are providing cover fire, laying down a barrage that forces my team to stay pinned while their leader makes his escape.
Bullets swallow up the stone pillars, shatter what’s left of the windows, and tear through anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the open.
I watch Viktor drag my son another five feet toward that door and something inside me snaps.
I break from cover. It’s reckless and stupid. The kind of move that gets soldiers killed in training exercises and commanders court-martialed. But my son is being taken, and I can’t just hide behind a pillar while it happens. Can’t just watch as Luca disappears through that door.
A shooter pops up from behind an overturned pew, and I drop him with two rounds to the chest before he can line up a shot.
Another tries to flank me from the left and I spin, fire, watch him crumple.
A third gets off a burst that tears through the air inches from my head, close enough that I feel the heat of the rounds passing, and I dive behind the remnants of a confessional booth as return fire chews up the floor where I was standing.
I’m breathing hard now and my heart is hammering. But I’m still moving through the chaos.
Roy appears at my side and there’s blood running down his left arm, soaking through his jacket in a dark stain, but his gun is steady in hand and his eyes are determined. He’s been loyal since I hired him, and I know he’ll have my back.
“Shoulder?” I ask.
“Through and through. Hurts like hell but I’ll live.” He ducks as a bullet sparks off the stone above our heads. “Viktor?”
“Heading for the east exit.”
“I’ve got men moving to cut him off.”
“Not fast enough.”
We advance together, covering each other the way we’ve done since we were teenagers running errands for my father. Roy takes the right while I clear the left, and together we carve a path through Viktor’s defenders with the kind of brutality that only comes from years of fighting side by side.
I kill a man who steps out from behind a pillar, two shots to the chest, center mass just like I was taught, and I don’t slow down to watch him fall.
There’s no satisfaction in it, no triumph.
Just the necessity of removing an obstacle between me and my child.
Another appears in my peripheral vision and Roy drops him before I can even bring my weapon around.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Just keep moving.”
The altar steps are wet with blood when we reach them. Some of it is from Viktor’s men. Some of it is from mine. I don’t let myself look at faces or let myself count our losses. There’ll be time for grief later. Right now there’s only the mission.
A burst of automatic fire forces us both to dive behind the altar itself, the heavy stone providing temporary cover while bullets chip away at the ancient carvings.
I can hear Viktor shouting orders somewhere to my right, I can hear Luca crying for me, and every sound my son makes is another knife twisting in my chest.
“We need to flank them,” Roy says, checking his magazine. “I’ll go left, draw their fire. You push through.”
“Your arm—”
“Is fine. Go get your son.”
He doesn’t wait for me to argue. Just rolls out of cover and starts moving, his wounded arm held tight against his body while he fires with his good hand. Viktor’s men shift their attention to him, which is exactly what we need.
I move.
Three defenders between me and that side exit.
The first one doesn’t see me coming until my bullet is already in his throat.
The second spins around just in time to catch two rounds in the chest. The third is faster, gets off a shot that grazes my ribs like a line of fire, but I push through the pain and put him down with a headshot.
I can see the doorway now. Can see Viktor’s back as he drags my son through it, disappearing into whatever lies beyond.
“Luca!”
My son’s voice answers, muffled but desperate, echoing from somewhere in that darkness. “D!”
I feel my legs running before I can even think twice.
But Viktor’s rear guard is doing their job, throwing everything they have at me to buy their boss time to escape. Bullets tear up the floor around my feet, force me to dive behind a pillar, cost me precious seconds I can’t afford to lose.
Roy’s there again, appearing from a different angle, his face tight with pain, but his aim is still precise. Together we cut down two more defenders, then a third, but every second we spend fighting is another second Viktor has to disappear with my son.
“The secondary team,” I gasp into the comm. “Tell me they’re in position.”
“We’ve breached the lower levels,” Marco’s voice comes through, along with the sound of gunfire from below. “Heavy resistance in the catacombs. We’re pushing through but it’s taking time.”
We don’t have time.
The church is worse than a warzone now, bodies scattered across the floor, the smell of fresh blood and death so thick my intestines twist. My men are still fighting, but Viktor’s forces are putting up more resistance than we expected.
He planned this perfectly. Knew exactly how many men to position, exactly where to place them, exactly how to slow us down while he made his escape.
And I’d taught him all of these. He watched me, learned from me, memorized my tactics and my weaknesses and my patterns.
I’d tried to change things enough to throw him off, but it wasn’t enough.
I push forward through the sanctuary, killing anyone who gets in my way, and moving through the chaos with the kind of coldness and inhumanity that used to scare me when I was younger.
Back then I wondered if there was anything human left inside me.
Now I’m grateful for the monster my father created.
Because monsters are what it takes to save my son.
Roy stays at my shoulder, bleeding but still fighting, still covering my advance while I push toward that side exit where Viktor disappeared with my boy.
Bodies fall around us, some of them wearing tactical gear like ours, others in civilian clothes.
The gunfire is starting to thin as Viktor’s forces realize they’re losing, as my men cut them down one by one, but the damage is done.
Viktor is gone. And he’s taken Luca with him.
I reach the doorway and stare into the darkness beyond, my chest heaving, blood dripping from the graze on my ribs, my hands shaking with rage and fear.