Chapter 7 - The Battle for Sands Point
The heavy steel doors of the underground panic room hissed shut, sealing Hannah and Ellie inside a brightly lit, reinforced vault beneath the mansion's foundation.
Ellie sat on a small leather sofa, holding Rosie tightly, while her mother paced the floor, listening to the muffled thuds of gunfire echoing through the ventilation shafts above.
Outside, the estate had turned into a war zone.
Sal Falcone’s strike team had landed on the private beach using two high-speed tactical boats. They breached the perimeter fence with plastic explosives, expecting to catch the mansion off guard.
Instead, they walked directly into a trap.
Floodlights mounted along the estate walls snapped on, illuminating the dark lawn in blinding white light.
"Fire!" Dominic screamed from a second-floor window.
Adrian’s guards opened fire from covered positions behind the stone pillars and garden walls. Suppressed gunfire spat through the night air as Falcone’s men were cut down in the open field.
Sal Falcone, flanked by four heavily armed bodyguards, managed to breach the rear glass doors of the conservatory, stepping inside the mansion while his men fought outside.
"Find the basement!" Sal yelled, blood splattered across his coat. "Find the kid!"
He marched through the grand hallway, his boots crunching on shattered glass from the crystal chandeliers. As he reached the entrance of the grand ballroom, a lone figure stepped out from the shadows.
Adrian stood under the pale moonlight streaming through the skylight, holding a heavy tactical shotgun.
"You're late, Sal," Adrian said, his deep voice resounding through the cavernous room.
Sal’s bodyguards immediately raised their weapons, but Adrian fired first.
BOOM!
The heavy blast blew the lead guard backward through the wooden doors. Adrian stepped sideways into cover behind a marble column as bullets splintered the stone around him.
Dominic burst into the room from the side entrance, firing two bursts from his submachine gun, taking down the remaining two guards.
Sal Falcone dropped to his knees, his gun sliding across the slick marble floor toward Adrian’s feet.
The room fell dead silent, save for the heavy breathing of the three men and the distant wail of police sirens approaching in the distance.
Adrian stepped out from behind the column, racking another shell into the shotgun chamber. He walked slowly over to Sal, stopping three feet away.
Sal looked up, his face pale and covered in sweat. "Adrian... wait... we can talk! We can divide the territory! You take Manhattan, I keep Brooklyn!"
Adrian looked down at the man who had ordered the bomb that killed Elena and Lily. He remembered the horror of that day, the empty years that followed, and the tiny four-year-old girl who had brought him back from the dead with a pink rabbit backpack.
"You brought poison into my home, Sal," Adrian whispered coldly. "You targeted a child. There is no talking."
"Adrian, please—!"
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BOOM.
The shot echoed through the empty mansion, settling the blood feud that had torn New York apart for three long years.
