Chapter 5
Chapter 5
“Dominic’s strike team left Kenosha forty minutes ago,” Marcus said, glancing up with grim eyes. “They will reach the front gates approximately ten minutes before our aircraft touches down.”
Adrian leaned forward toward the cockpit bulkhead. “Push the turbines to emergency output, Captain. We cannot afford to give them ten uncontested minutes inside those walls.”
The helicopter surged forward, vibrating heavily as it cut through turbulent rain clouds at top speed. Brielle stared at the satellite photograph of the chapel, praying desperately for Emily’s safety.
Far below, hidden beneath the canopy of pine trees, three dark sport utility vehicles killed their lights. Armed men in tactical gear emerged into the downpour, cutting the sanctuary’s iron perimeter gates.
Inside the quiet dormitory, nineteen-year-old Clara Vance woke to the distant sound of breaking chain links. She reached for the silver oval locket resting against her collarbone with instinctual fear.
The sanctuary had been her peaceful refuge for over a decade, but tonight an ancient dread returned. Footsteps echoed outside the long stone corridor, heavy, hurried, and entirely foreign to the nuns.
Sister Beatrice pounded on Clara’s wooden bedroom door, her wrinkled face pale beneath her wet habit. “Clara, run toward the root cellar beneath the old chapel! Men with rifles are outside!”
Before Clara could answer, a loud blast shattered the heavy wooden front doors downstairs. Shouts and splintering wood echoed through the high ceilings, accompanied by the cold mountain rain.
Dominic Vance walked through the ruined entryway, his face lined with prison scars and ruthless intent. He carried a heavy pistol at his side, stepping over debris without glancing down.
“Find the girl with the silver locket!” Dominic shouted to his mercenaries in a dry, rasping growl. “Check every dormitory cell and shoot anyone who refuses to step aside!”
Clara bolted down the rear service stairs, her bare feet silent against the cold stone steps. She smelled smoke and gunpowder, memories of an Ashland Avenue apartment flashing through her mind.
She reached the chapel, but the heavy oak doors leading to the cellar were padlocked from outside. Panic gripped her throat as footsteps approached from both sides of the candlelit nave.
Suddenly, the deafening roar of helicopter rotors tore through the howling wind directly above the chapel roof. A blinding spotlight pierced the stained-glass windows, illuminating the sacred interior with fierce daylight.
Rope lines dropped from the hovering aircraft through the downpour onto the chapel lawn outside. Adrian Moretti was the first man down the line, hitting the turf with weapon raised and firing.
Brielle slid down behind Marcus, ignoring the searing pain in her stitched hand as she landed. Cold mud splashed across her boots, but she sprinted forward toward the chapel doors.
“Stay behind the sweep team!” Adrian commanded, his voice cutting through the roar of tactical fire. Two of Dominic’s perimeter guards collapsed into the wet grass under precise, rapid fire.
Adrian breached the side door of the chapel with a heavy kick, entering low with weapon ready. Inside, Dominic Vance had already seized Clara by her hair, pulling her toward the altar.
“Back away, Moretti!” Dominic snarled, pressing the hot barrel of his gun against Clara’s temple. “One step closer and Julian’s darling little legacy dies right on these stones!”
Brielle stepped through the doorway, freezing in her tracks as she caught sight of the girl’s face. Despite eleven years of absence, there was no mistaking those wide, terrified hazel eyes.
“Emily,” Brielle whispered, tears cutting clean lines through the dirt and dried blood on her cheeks. Clara’s breath hitched, her gaze shifting from the gun toward the voice calling her true name.
“Brielle?” the girl sobbed, disbelief and overwhelming terror cracking her young voice. “You died... they told me you burned inside our home on Ashland Avenue.”
“I lived, Emily,” Brielle said, stepping forward past Adrian’s defensive arm despite the obvious danger. “And I spent every single day of the last eleven years searching for you.”
“Silence!” Dominic roared, tightening his grip on Emily’s hair while keeping his gun trained on her head. “Drop your weapons, Moretti, or I scatter her brains across this altar right now!”
Adrian lowered his pistol slightly, his dark eyes locked onto Dominic with predatory, calculated calm. “You take that shot, Dominic, and you leave this holy room in sixteen different pieces.”
“I don't care about leaving!” Dominic screamed, madness flickering in his bloodshot eyes. “The Morettis took my family’s empire, and Julian Vance stole everything we had built!”
Brielle noticed a heavy bronze altar crucifix standing on a pedestal barely two feet to Dominic’s blind side. Eleven years ago, she had frozen in fear, watching helpless while monsters tore her world apart.
She did not freeze tonight.
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Without hesitation, Brielle hurled herself forward, snatching the heavy bronze crucifix from its marble stand. She swung it with all her strength, striking Dominic’s raised wrist with a deafening metallic crunch.
—END OF Chapter 5,
