Chapter 2 - Blood and Bourbon
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Dante didn't wait for the man in the trench coat to clear his holster.
With terrifying speed, Dante’s boot slammed against the underside of the heavy mahogany table, flipping it upward like a shield just as the first suppressed rounds spat through the dining room. Crystal shattered. Cream silk turned crimson as Camilla shrieked, scrambling backward onto the floor while bullets chewed into the thick wood where Dante’s chest had been half a second earlier.
"Down!" Dante roared, though he wasn't looking at Camilla.
His steel-gray eyes locked onto Clara. Before she could process the chaos, his iron grip caught the front of her uniform and wrenched her down behind the overturned booth.
Screams erupted across L’Ombra. Wealthy patrons dove beneath tables, overturning chairs and silver wine buckets. Near the entrance, Dante’s head of security, Luca, burst through the front doors—bleeding from a gash across his temple—and dropped the trench-coated gunman with two shots to the center mass.
"Boss! Back kitchen is breached!" Luca barked, firing toward the swinging service doors as two more men bearing the Viper insignia pushed through with submachine guns. "We’re boxed in!"
Clara pressed her hands over her ears, her heart hammering against her ribs as hot brass casings rained down around her ankles. Across the booth floor, Camilla was hyperventilating, clutching her ruined dress—nicked by splintered wood, not bullets—and reaching frantically for her fallen diamond clutch.
Dante noticed the movement. He didn't hesitate. He planted his Italian leather shoe squarely on Camilla’s wrist, pinning her hand to the carpet.
"Looking for your burner, sweetheart?" Dante asked, his voice deadlier than the gunfire echoing off the plaster walls.
"Dante, please!" Camilla sobbed, tears streaking her contour. "Viktor threatened my galleries! He said he’d ruin my family if I didn't give him your location!"
"So you traded my head for an art exhibit," Dante said coldly. He kicked her clutch into the center aisle, then turned back to Clara, who was shivering against the leather banquette. "You. What’s your name?"
"C-Clara," she stammered, her lungs burning with cordite and smoke.
"How did you know who was in the alley, Clara?"
"The lighter," she gasped out as another volley of gunfire shattered the bar mirrors above them. "One of them dropped a silver lighter with a coiled viper on it. And I saw her texting in the bathroom mirror."
Dante’s jaw tightened. A man who noticed the Viper crest wasn't just an observant civilian; the Vipers were Viktor Kael’s private hit squad, ghosts to anyone who didn't swim in the city's bloodiest waters.
"Luca!" Dante shouted, drawing a sleek black Heckler & Koch from beneath his suit jacket. "Clear the wine cellar stairwell! We go out through the coal chute!"
"What about me?!" Camilla screamed as Dante hauled Clara to her feet by her elbow. "Dante, you can't leave me here! Viktor’s men will kill me for failing!"
Dante paused for half a heartbeat, glancing down at the woman he had wined and dined for six months.
"Tell Viktor the service here was exceptional," Dante replied evenly. "Maybe he’ll leave you a tip."
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"Wait—I can't go with you!" Clara protested, panic clawing at her throat as Dante dragged her toward the pantry door while Luca laid down cover fire. "I have a life! My brother—"
"As of thirty seconds ago, every camera in this restaurant and three gunmen in that kitchen saw me pull you behind my table," Dante growled in her ear, kicking open the heavy cellar door. "If you stay here, you’re dead before the cops even tape off the street. Move!"
