Chapter 7
The heavy walnut doors swung open, but it was not Alistair's security detail that entered.
Three men dressed in the crisp white shirts and black vests of the catering staff stepped into the bright, luminous dining room. Their fair, rosy faces were grim, their American accents entirely absent as they raised suppressed, high-caliber handguns, leveling them directly at Alistair.
"Is this the cavalry you arranged, Selene?" Alistair asked, his deep voice slicing through the sudden, deadly tension without a single tremor of fear.
Selene screamed, scrambling backward on the marble floor, desperately trying to get out of the line of fire. The assassins did not hesitate. They opened fire, the suppressed weapons emitting a deadly, rhythmic thwip-thwip-thwip that shattered the elegant warmth of the room.
Alistair moved with blinding, explosive speed. The movie-star handsome mafia boss vanished, replaced by an apex predator. He lunged to his right, his powerful shoulders propelling him behind a massive, overturned mahogany serving table just as bullets shredded the spot where he had been standing. Crystal stemware exploded into thousands of glittering shards.
"Are you keeping your head down, June?" Alistair roared over the sound of shattering porcelain.
June had already reacted with fierce, maternal instinct. She grabbed Luke by the lapels of his formal jacket, hauling the seven-year-old boy violently to the floor. The sophisticated black maid dress bunched around her as she threw her slender body completely over the child, shielding him with her own flesh as bullets tore through the ivory-paneled walls above them.
"I have him!" June cried out, her voice trembling but resolute.
From behind his cover, Alistair drew a heavy, customized automatic weapon from a concealed shoulder holster beneath his three-piece suit. His perceptive, cold eyes quickly calculated the angles of the room reflected in the surviving gilded mirrors.
"Do you truly believe you can walk into my home and leave breathing?" Alistair asked the empty air.
He rolled smoothly out from behind the mahogany table. The refined artistic tattoos across his hands stabilized his weapon with flawless precision. He fired three times in rapid succession. The deafening roar of his unsuppressed weapon overwhelmed the room.
The first assassin collapsed backward, a fatal bloom of crimson ruining his pristine white catering shirt. The second man spun wildly, his weapon firing blindly into the cascading crystal chandeliers before he hit the marble floor.
The third assassin panicked, scrambling toward the heavy walnut doors to escape the absolute slaughter.
"Are you running so soon?" Alistair asked, rising to his full height.
He aimed and fired a single, decisive shot. The third man crumpled in the doorway, his body wedging the heavy doors open.
The dining room fell into a terrifying, ringing silence. The warm golden light flickered as a damaged chandelier swayed precariously above. The smell of cordite and shattered roses filled the air.
Alistair did not lower his weapon. He kept his extremely short stubble and sharply defined jawline locked in a mask of lethal focus, his eyes scanning the corridor outside for further threats.
"Is everyone unharmed?" Alistair asked quietly, walking slowly toward the center of the room.
June slowly lifted her head from the patterned rug. Her face was pale, covered in a fine layer of plaster dust, but she was uninjured. Beneath her, Luke was shaking, his small hands clutching tightly to her white apron.
"We are okay, Mr. Crowe," June whispered, helping the boy sit up.
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Alistair looked down at the beautiful housemaid, his cold eyes softening imperceptibly. He had seen seasoned men break under gunfire, yet she had used her own body as a shield for a child who was not hers.
"Did you think I would let them harm you?" Alistair asked, offering his tattooed hand to help her up from the floor.
