Chapter 6 - The Price of Sovereignty
The next four minutes were a blur of deafening noise, flashes of gunpowder, and the sharp smell of ozone and blood.
Grant's mercenaries flooded the server room, firing blindly into the racks. Dante’s men returned fire with lethal, precision accuracy. Avery forced her mind to separate from the chaos around her. She blocked out the screams, the shattering glass, and the concussive thuds of bodies hitting the floor.
Type. Code. Compile. Execute.
"Eighty percent," she gasped aloud, her fingers moving in a blur.
A mercenary broke through the defensive line, his rifle aimed directly at Avery's head. Before he could pull the trigger, Dante appeared out of the smoke. He caught the barrel of the rifle, deflecting the shot into the ceiling, and drove a combat knife deep into the man’s throat.
But as the mercenary fell, a second shooter fired from the doorway.
Avery saw it in slow motion. The bullet caught Dante in the shoulder. He grunted, his body jerking back, but he didn't fall. He spun, firing three successive rounds into the shooter's chest, neutralizing the threat.
"Dante!" Avery cried, reaching for him.
"Keep typing!" he roared, blood quickly soaking through the left shoulder of his tactical gear. He stood like an iron wall between her and the door, his right hand steady as he continued to fire.
"Ninety-five... ninety-nine... done!" Avery slammed her hand onto the enter key.
The monitors instantly flashed from red back to green. The facility's automated defense system—a series of non-lethal suppression gases Avery had re-routed into the ventilation system—activated. A thick, white mist flooded the hallways outside, causing Grant’s remaining mercenaries to drop their weapons, coughing and gasping for air.
The electronic locks on the emergency exit clicked open.
Avery scrambled around the desk, catching Dante as he stumbled slightly. The blood was flowing freely from his shoulder, warm and terrifyingly real against her hands.
"I've got you," she said, wrapping his uninjured arm around her shoulders. "The grid is saved. The code is locked. We have to go."
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Dante looked down at her, his pale face sweating, but a fierce, triumphant smirk crossed his lips. "I told you... I don't get broken easily, cara."
With the remaining Russo operatives clearing the path, they escaped through the rear docks, boarding a high-speed security boat just as the sirens of the NYPD echoed in the distance.
