Chapter 7 - Turning the Tide
The courtyard erupted into a deafening roar of automatic gunfire. Tracer rounds hissed through the falling snow, chewing chunks out of the stone balustrade inches where Gabriel and I were crouched.
Viktor didn't flinch. He leaned over the stone railing, his submachine gun barking in rhythmic, controlled bursts, taking out the tires of Marcus’s armored Mercedes and pinning the advancing mercenaries behind the vehicles.
“Clara, keep your head down!” Gabriel shouted over the din of combat, even as he shouldered his own weapon and returned fire with terrifying accuracy, dropping two of Marcus’s front-line enforcers into the snow.
I checked my pistol magazine. Seven rounds left.
Scanning the courtyard, I spotted three of Marcus’s men flanking our position to the left, attempting to use the frozen greenhouse structure to climb onto the second-floor balcony and catch us in a crossfire.
“Viktor! Left flank—greenhouse roof!” I yelled over the gunfire.
Viktor didn't even look; he simply pivoted his weapon and laid down a suppressing wall of lead that forced the flanking operatives to dive behind a snowbank. But they were still creeping closer, inch by inch.
“Gabriel, your back!” I cried out as I saw another operative raising a rifle directly toward Gabriel’s exposed shoulder.
Without thinking, I lunged forward from behind the stone pillar, grabbed Gabriel’s heavy wool coat, and jerked him violently to the side just as a bullet shattered the stone where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier.
The sudden, violent movement wrenched Gabriel’s lower spine. A sharp gasp of agony tore from his throat, and he stumbled hard against the veranda wall, his knees buckling.
“Gabriel!” I dropped to my knees beside him, supporting his weight against my shoulder.
“I’m… I’m fine,” Gabriel gritted through clenched teeth, sweat freezing on his forehead. “Just… give me a second.”
I looked up at the two operatives scaling the greenhouse roof, preparing to take their final shot. My heart hammered against my ribs, but the clinical detachment of the trauma ward took over. I raised my pistol, steadied my wrist against Gabriel’s shoulder for support, and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The first round missed, chipping the glass roof. The second struck the leading operative’s shoulder, sending him tumbling off the glass structure into the snow below. The third round hit the second operative’s rifle barrel, shattering the mechanism and sending him scrambling backward in sheer panic.
“Not bad for a nurse,” Gabriel whispered, a faint, genuine respect warming his dark eyes.
“I told you,” I panted, keeping the pistol raised. “I know human anatomy. And I know how to protect my patients.”
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Viktor fired a final, deafening burst that shattered the remaining headlights of Marcus’s SUVs, plunging the courtyard into semi-darkness illuminated only by the burning embers of a downed security turret.
Marcus Moretti, stranded, his backup incapacitated, and his coup completely shattered, stood alone in the middle of the drifting snow with his hands raised in surrender.
