Chapter 32 - The viper at the table
The smoke from the breached doors swirled around Lorenzo’s boots as he advanced. Behind him, twelve of the Rossi syndicate’s deadliest enforcers fanned out in military formation, their assault rifles raised, sweeping the catwalks with crimson laser sights.
"Kill him! Kill them all!" Moretti screamed, scrambling behind a stack of wooden crates while cradling his blistered, smoking hand.
Muzzle flashes illuminated the gloom like strobe lights. The deafening roar of automatic gunfire tore through Warehouse 9. Ricochets sparked off the rusted iron pillars and container walls.
Lorenzo moved with terrifying precision. He didn't take cover. He walked forward like the angel of death, his rifle barking in rapid, controlled triplets. Three of Moretti’s front-line mercenaries dropped before they could even align their sights.
"Luca, clear the catwalks! Dante, cut the floodlights!" Lorenzo ordered over the tactical comms.
The overhead lights shattered under sniper fire, plunging the vast warehouse into shadow. Only the intermittent flashes of gun barrels and the eerie, golden glow emanating from Sophie lit the battlefield.
Sophie struggled against the iron chains. The bio-electric surge that had burned Moretti had drained her sudden burst of energy, leaving her trembling violently as the cold salt air hit her feverish skin. "Donna Rossi... can you reach the latch?" she whispered desperately.
"Don't worry about me, child," Donna Rossi whispered back, her fingers working against the frayed rope around her wrists. "Look at my boy. He didn't come to negotiate. He came to butcher."
From the shadows of the high shipping containers, a heavy mechanical grinding sound groaned above the gunfire.
A shipping container suspended forty feet in the air by an industrial crane swung open. Out dropped four massive figures clad in pressurized titanium combat suits, their helmets sealed with tinted blast glass. On their shoulder plates was the triangular insignia of the Vance Consortium’s Apex Division.
"Chemical suppression units!" Luca yelled through the radio. "Boss, their armor is rated for high-caliber rounds! Small arms won't pierce them!"
The four juggernauts raised heavy pneumatic cannons. With a dull thud, canisters of cryogenic foam launched across the floor, freezing the concrete instantly and creating an advancing wall of sub-zero ice that forced Lorenzo’s men into retreat.
Moretti poked his head out from behind the crates, grinning like a madman through his panic. "Vance gave me his best toys, Rossi! You came here to die with your little whore and your dried-up mother!"
One of the armored juggernauts leveled its pneumatic cannon directly at Donna Rossi and Sophie, intending to freeze them solid for transport.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened. "No!"
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He dropped his empty rifle and sprinted directly into the line of fire, intending to shield them with his own body.
👉 Can Lorenzo take the cryogenic blast, or will Sophie’s dormant power unleash a final catastrophe?
