Chapter 9 - The Shadows in the Boston Alley
The words tore through the kitchen like an electric shock.
Evelyn gasped, springing to her feet, her hands flying to her mouth in sheer, unadulterated panic. “They found us… God, they found us!”
“Julian!” I barked, my voice snapping back into the commanding, razor-sharp authority of a wartime general. “Get Evelyn and the children into the rear master bathroom! Lock the deadbolt and do not open it for anyone except me or Marcus!”
Julian didn't hesitate. He rushed toward the bedroom door, calling out for the children: “Mrs. Higgins! Pack the kids into the back bathroom right now! Move!”
I stepped to the window overlooking Tremont Street, pulling the sheer lace curtain back a fraction of an inch.
Through the morning fog, three black Chevrolet Suburbans were idling across the street, their hazard lights blinking. Six men dressed in tactical windbreakers, Kevlar vests, and dark baseball caps were emerging from the vehicles, racking the slides of suppressed submachine guns.
Leading them across the wet brick sidewalk was my first cousin, Julian Vance.
Julian Vance was thirty-six, dressed in an expensive designer trench coat, holding a satellite communicator, his face twisted in a predatory, triumphant sneer.
“Adrian!” Marcus’s voice crackled through my earpiece. “I’m on the third-floor fire escape! I have two hostiles pinned on the stairs, but four more are entering through the basement service door!”
“Hold your fire until they clear the civilians on the second floor, Marcus,” I commanded coldly, walking back to the baseboard where I had discarded my Beretta .45.
I scooped the heavy pistol off the floor, checked the fifteen-round magazine, and racked the slide with a crisp, lethal metallic click.
From the hallway outside the apartment door, the heavy, rhythmic thud of tactical combat boots began ascending the fourth-floor wooden stairs.
“Evelyn!” I called out softly, stepping into the hallway archway.
Evelyn was standing in the doorway of the nursery, her arms trembling as she held both Leo and Mia behind her skirts.
Her hazel eyes were wide with terror, but beneath the fear, she saw the calm, absolute certainty in my face.
“Adrian…” she whispered, tears spilling over her lashes. “Please… don't let them take my babies.”
I looked at my son, who was still clutching his blue plush elephant, and at my daughter, whose gray eyes reflected the morning light.
“Nobody takes my family, Evelyn,” I said softly, my voice smooth as silk and cold as diamond. “Nobody.”
I stepped backward into the hallway, pulled the heavy oak door closed, and engaged the secondary deadbolt from the outside.
I stood alone on the fourth-floor landing, silhouetted against the morning window, my weapon raised at low-ready.
CREEEAK.
The heavy fire door at the end of the corridor was kicked off its latch.
Two armed contractors in tactical gear stepped onto the landing, their suppressed carbines raised toward the center of the hall.
The moment their tactical flashlights illuminated my face, the lead gunman froze in pure, paralyzed shock.
“Boss…?” the contractor stammered, his finger wavering on the trigger.
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“You’re standing on the wrong floor, boys,” I said softly.
And I pulled the trigger.
