Chapter 7 - The Trap at the South Gate
The rain was coming down in sheets when the black Mercedes-Maybach pulled away from the main entrance of Castellano Manor without its headlights on.
Inside the vehicle, Victor Castellano sat in the back seat, his face carved from granite, a customized Sig Sauer P226 pistol resting on his knee. In the front passenger seat sat Victor’s most trusted enforcer, holding a heavy duffel bag filled with unmarked fifty-dollar bills.
“Boss,” the enforcer murmured nervously, checking the magazine of his submachine gun. “It’s a setup. The Outfit is using the loan sharks to draw you out into the open. Once you get to the south gate, they’ll hit the convoy from the tree line.”
“I know it’s a setup,” Victor replied coldly, his voice vibrating with lethal calm. “They think they can use an innocent civilian to break my focus. They don't understand that anyone inside my gates—anyone under my roof—is my responsibility.”
“And the girl? Iris Day?”
“She’s already packed,” Victor said, staring out the rain-streaked window at the dark woods flanking the estate road. “By now, she’s miles away in a cab heading toward the city. She’s safe.”
He thought he was being protective. He thought he had severed the cord cleanly.
He didn't know that Iris Day had refused the cab.
Instead of fleeing into the night, Iris had slipped out through the drainage tunnel behind the staff quarters—a hidden path she had discovered while mapping the estate’s utility routes. Wearing a dark raincoat, she was currently cutting cross-country through the dense, muddy woods toward the south perimeter maintenance gate, armed with nothing more than a heavy steel wrench she had taken from the maintenance shed.
They’re coming after me because of him, Iris thought, her boots sinking into the wet autumn leaves as lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the looming iron bars of the south gate in stark, brilliant white. I’m not running anymore.
When Iris reached the edge of the tree line near the south gate, she froze in horror.
Parked beside the maintenance fence were two unmarked black SUVs. Four masked men holding assault rifles stood around a duffel bag filled with cash resting on the hood of the lead vehicle.
And fifty yards down the road, Victor’s Maybach had just arrived, its engine idling, doors sealed.
The trap was fully sprung.
One of the masked enforcers raised his assault rifle, aiming directly toward the driver’s side window of the Maybach. “Drop your weapons, Castellano! Step out with your hands on your head!”
Iris knew that the moment Victor stepped out of that car, he would be cut down in a crossfire of automatic weapons. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She couldn't let another person die in front of her—not after Maya, not after Audrey.
She gripped the heavy steel wrench in her right hand, stepped out from behind the oak tree into the pouring rain, and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Hey! Assholes!”
All four masked men whipped around, leveling their weapons toward her.
“Looking for me?” Iris yelled, her voice trembling slightly but cutting through the roar of the rain.
The leader of the thugs laughed darkly, lowering his rifle barrel toward her chest. “Well, look what the stray cat dragged in. Grab her! The boss wants her alive so we can send pieces of her to Castellano one by one!”
Two men rushed toward her through the mud.
Iris braced herself, raising the heavy wrench, ready to fight for her life—
Bang! Bang!
Two deafening gunshots shattered the night air.
The two enforcers charging toward Iris suddenly dropped to their knees, howling in agony as precise, non-lethal rounds shattered their kneecaps.
Before the remaining two thugs could react, the doors of the Maybach blew open. Victor Castellano emerged from the darkness like a wrathful god, his Sig Sauer flashing twice in rapid succession.
Bang! Bang!
The remaining two gunmen collapsed into the mud, their weapons clattering across the wet asphalt.
Silence descended upon the south gate, broken only by the steady, unrelenting roar of the rain and the groans of the wounded men in the mud.
Victor strode across the clearing, his black coat swirling around his ankles, ignoring the rain soaking his hair and face. He didn't look at the men on the ground. His dark eyes were fixed entirely on Iris, who stood shivering in her oversized raincoat, still clutching the steel wrench.
He reached her in three massive strides. Without a word, he grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her violently against his chest, and buried his face in her wet hair.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Victor roared, his voice cracking with a raw, terrifying intensity that scared her more than the guns had. “I told you to leave! I told you you were safe!”
“They were going to kill you,” Iris gasped, clutching the lapel of his wet coat.
Victor pulled back, holding her face in his large, calloused hands. His dark eyes blazed with a fierce, possessive fury that defied all logic. “You are a stubborn, reckless, impossible woman, Iris Day.”
“And you’re an arrogant, terrifying control freak, Mr. Castellano,” Iris shot back, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks.
May you like
Victor stared at her for a long, scorching moment. Then, slowly, his expression softened. He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, closing his eyes as the storm raged around them.
“Take her back to the manor,” Victor commanded over his shoulder to his enforcer, never breaking eye contact with Iris. “Lock down every perimeter. Anyone who breathes near this estate tonight dies.”
