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A baby began crying above us. Rose. The sound was faint beneath the alarm, but it reached the entrance hall.

Raze came through the kitchen doorway at the same moment. He heard his daughter. His face emptied. The head of the Cavalho family vanished beneath the expression of a father listening to his baby scream while men attacked the home beneath her nursery.

He turned toward the next shadow moving beyond the damaged dining-room shutter. The attacker pushed a rifle through the gap. Raze caught the barrel, dragged it inward and fired three times through the opening. Raze kept hold of the rifle and pulled until the dead man’s arm jammed beneath the shutter. Then he broke the hand against the metal and tore the weapon free.

Marcello staggered into the hall behind him, pale from blood loss but still carrying his pistol.

“What did I miss?”

Archie looked at his wounded arm.

“You were shot.”

“I noticed.”

The front doors shuddered beneath a heavy impact. Archie moved to the centre of the hallway. Raze covered his right. Marcello took the left despite the blood running down his arm. I stood behind them, watching the staircase and the west corridor. For the first time since my return, I didn’t feel like a guest standing inside someone else’s home. My body found its place beside theirs.

The front doors shook beneath another strike. One hinge shifted. A narrow gap opened along the frame. A hand pushed through, reaching for the internal lock. Archie seized the wrist. The man outside shouted as Archie pulled his arm through to the elbow. Archie bent the wrist backward until bone broke through the skin. The scream carried across the terrace.

“How many left?” Archie asked.

The man cursed him. Archie twisted again. The trapped arm tore against the metal edge of the door.

“How. Many?”

“Six,” the man gasped. “Six at the front.”

Archie looked at Raze.

“Five now.”

He fired through the gap. The body outside fell, taking the ruined arm with it.

Archie replaced his magazine as the front doors shook again. This time, the attackers fired through the gap before striking. Rounds tore across the entrance hall.

We dropped behind the stone pillars.

Marcello fired from the floor with his left hand. Raze shot through the opening between the doors. Archie moved instead of taking cover. He crossed the hall beneath the gunfire and reached the side window where the steel shutter had jammed halfway down.

“Archie,” I shouted.

He ignored me. He hooked his fingers beneath the shutter and pulled it upward far enough to expose the terrace. A rifle swung toward him from outside. He fired first. The shooter dropped. Archie climbed through the narrow opening before anyone could stop him.

“God damn him,” Raze muttered.

We followed. Cold air struck my face. The terrace had become a field of broken glass and shell casings. Bodies lay strewn across the courtyard.

Archie reached the nearest attacker before the man could take cover and caught the rifle, drove the stock into the man’s throat and ripped the weapon free. The attacker reached for a sidearm. Archie shot him through the stomach. The man folded. Archie caught him by the hair and fired again beneath his chin.

Two more shooters turned from the front doors. Raze and I opened fire. One dropped behind a column. The other ran toward the garden. Marcello leaned through the broken window and shot him in the back. He fell face-first across the steps.

The man behind the column fired blindly. Stone chipped beside Raze’s head. I moved along the wall, staying below his line of sight. He leaned out again. I caught his weapon, dragged him around the column and struck him across the face with my pistol. He went down on one knee. I kicked the weapon away and seized his throat, slamming him hard against the stone. He fought hard. I fought without mercy.

The sound of engines roared beyond the front gates. Headlights swept across the drive. Atlas’s convoy entered at speed, Cavalho soldiers firing from the open windows before the vehicles had fully stopped.

The remaining attackers broke formation. Some ran toward the northern wall. Others returned fire while retreating through the garden.

Atlas’s men closed from the east and west. The gunfight spread across the estate. Muzzle flashes lit the dark lawn. An attacker fell beside the fountain. Another tried to scale the wall and was pulled backward by two guards.