Chapter 38 - Shield of Honor
Bullets sparked against the concrete floor at Emma’s feet, kicking up sharp stone chips that stung her shins. A mercenary stepped out from behind a rusted forklift, raising a submachine gun directly at her chest.
Emma remembered the drills Dominic had rushed her through in the transport. She didn't freeze; she drew her suppressed pistol with both hands, planting her feet, and pulled the trigger three times.
The shots cracked cleanly. The mercenary gasped, staggering backward before collapsing against the forklift wheel, his weapon clattering harmlessly to the ground. Emma’s hands shook with adrenaline, but she didn't stop. She reached the steel chair, throwing her arms around the trembling boy.
"Leo! I’m here! I’m here, baby, look at me!" Emma sobbed, pulling the tape from his mouth and drawing a combat knife from her vest to sever the zip-ties binding his wrists and ankles.
"Aunt Emma!" Leo wailed, burying his face into her tactical vest, clinging to her with desperate strength. "The bad lady... she said you were dead!"
"I’m alive, Leo! We’re going home!"
From the catwalk above, Helena Moretti’s voice shrieked over the gunfire: "Kill them! Kill both of them, you incompetent fools! Burn the entire foundry down!"
Two mercenaries charged from the railcar, assault rifles raised to execute Emma and the child. Emma threw her body completely over Leo, curling into a tight protective ball, shielding him with her own flesh and armor, prepared to take the bullets for the boy she had sworn to protect.
Before the mercenaries could fire, Vincent appeared like a vengeful specter from the smoke.
He didn't fire his rifle; he had run dry. He hurled the empty weapon into the face of the first mercenary, closing the distance in a fraction of a second. Vincent grabbed the man’s combat knife from his chest rig, spinning him around and using him as a human shield against the second mercenary’s fire. With a brutal, fluid motion, Vincent dispatched both men with ruthless efficiency, their bodies crashing into the gravel.
Vincent turned to Emma, his eyes wild and chest heaving, smoke rising from his gear. "Are you hit?!"
"We’re okay! Leo is okay!" Emma cried, holding the boy tight.
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Suddenly, a loud siren began to wail throughout the complex, followed by the deep, terrifying groan of metal stress. Above them, the heavy containment valves on the rusted blast furnace began to turn automatically, venting thick, orange-tinted industrial gas into the hall.
"The scuttle sequence!" Dominic shouted through Vincent’s earpiece as he breached the rear entrance with Team Two. "Vincent! Helena initiated a structural thermite demolition! The entire foundry is going to collapse in three minutes!"
