Chapter 13 - The Gardenia On The Doorstep
The silence that followed was suffocating. Outside, the wind off the lake had picked up, rattling the cedar shingles with violent gusts that sounded like fists pounding on wood. The sky was an ominous, bruised slate gray, forecasting a blizzard that was moving rapidly across the water from Wisconsin.
Dante didn't move for sixty seconds. He stood over the satellite phone, his broad shoulders squared, his breathing deliberate and measured. In the corporate boardroom, Dante Vance had been nicknamed *The Viper* because he never struck when he was angry; he struck when his opponent thought they were winning.
"It’s an ambush," I said, my voice shaking as I laid Clara down beside Mateo. "You know it’s an ambush, Dante. You can't go to that marina."
"Of course it's an ambush," Dante replied softly, without turning around. "Sienna never gave away leverage in her life. If she has the drive, Roman knows she has it. She's dangling the bait to pull me out of this cabin so Roman's team can storm the house without dealing with me."
"Then we run," I pleaded, rushing toward him and grabbing his forearms. "We take the old Jeep. We take the logging trails north toward the Canadian border. We disappear!"
"Lena, look at me." He took my face in both of his hands. His palms were warm, but his dark eyes were completely cold, calculating angles of survival that I couldn't even fathom. "They have County Road 12 blocked. If we put two three-week-old infants in a vehicle during a blizzard on closed backroads, they will hunt us down with thermal drones within twenty miles. In an open pursuit, we lose. In this house, we have fortified cover."
"Then you stay here!" I shouted, tears hot on my cheeks. "You stay and fight them here!"
"If six men with submachine guns breach this perimeter, a stray round will penetrate these cedar walls like paper," Dante said gently, pressing his forehead against mine. "I cannot let the fight happen in the same room where Mateo and Clara sleep. I have to split their focus."
Before I could answer, a loud, sharp thud echoed against the heavy front door.
Dante shoved me instantly behind the kitchen's brick chimney, drawing the Glock from his waistband in a single fluid motion. He thumbed the safety off, raised the weapon with both hands, and moved along the wall toward the entryway with terrifying, feline grace.
"Stay down," he mouthed to me.
Another thud. Then a faint, pathetic moan from the exterior porch.
Dante peered through the narrow peephole, his brow furrowing in genuine surprise. He didn't lower the gun, but he unlocked the deadbolt with his left hand, threw the heavy door open, and stepped back into a defensive stance.
A body collapsed across the threshold, landing face-down on the braided wool rug.
It was a woman. Her honey-blonde hair was matted with crimson sleet, her camel-hair coat torn to shreds at the hem. She was soaked through, shivering violently, her lips blue from the biting wind. As she turned her face toward the warm air of the cabin, the heavy, nauseating scent of gardenias filled the entryway.
Sienna Montgomery.
She wasn't carrying an assault rifle. She wasn't backed by mercenaries. Her left arm hung at a grotesque angle, clearly dislocated at the shoulder, and a deep, jagged laceration across her temple was bleeding freely into her eye.
"Dante..." she choked out, her teeth chattering so hard they sounded like dice in a cup. "He... he didn't wait for the marina."
Dante kept the gun aimed directly between her eyes. "Move your hands where I can see them, Sienna. Now."
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"I don't have... anything," she wept, rolling onto her back with a scream of agony, showing her empty, frostbitten palms. "Roman found out I contacted you. His men ambushed my car two miles outside the town limits. They forced me off the road... into the ditch. I crawled through the marsh... Dante, please... he’s already here."
From the dense woods beyond the tree line, three red laser dots pierced the twilight mist, dancing across the front porch steps and settling directly on Dante’s chest.
