Chapter 17 - Blood on the Snow
The impact drove the wind from Nathan’s lungs, but rage gave him the strength of three men. He drove his elbow into the scarred man’s throat, hearing cartilage crunch. The man roared, clawing at Nathan's eyes with gloved hands, throwing a heavy punch that clipped Nathan’s jaw, sending a flash of white across his vision.
Nathan tasted copper. He rolled, grabbing the tire iron he had dropped in the snow, and brought it down with savage force against the man’s collarbone. A sickening snap shattered the night air. The enforcer screamed, collapsing into the red-stained snow, clutching his shattered shoulder.
Ten feet away, the blue blanket lay in a snowbank.
Nathan scrambled on his knees, his hands numb, tearing the wool back. The little boy was shivering violently, coughing against the frigid air, his lips turning a faint shade of blue.
"Leo... Leo, look at me," Nathan choked out, pulling the child against his chest, tucking the boy inside his heavy down coat, wrapping his arms around him so tightly the child let out a tiny, frightened gasp. "I've got you. I've got you, buddy. Daddy's here."
The child buried his face into the hollow of Nathan's neck, clinging to the wool fabric of his sweater with tiny, frozen fists.
Michael emerged from the blizzard, smoke still rising from the barrel of his rifle. He surveyed the two fallen men and the groaning enforcer in the snow.
"We need to go, Nathan. State police will be responding to the gunfire, and Hector will have backup within an hour."
Nathan stood up, holding his son against his heart. The boy's pulse was rapid, fluttering against Nathan's ribs like a trapped bird—the exact same cadence he had heard through the phone speaker three hours earlier.
"Call Rosa," Nathan ordered, his voice raw, shaking with a mix of fury and fierce devotion. "Tell her to prepare the medical wing at the lake house. And Michael?"
"Yeah?"
"Get Vanessa out of that prison."
Michael stared at him through the falling snow. "What did you say?"
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"She lied to me. She tried to frame Eli. She is a monster," Nathan said, his eyes burning with an icy resolve that terrified even his former military operative. "But she kept my son alive. And now... she’s the only one who knows how to tear the Castiglione family apart from the inside. Get her out."
***
