Chapter 5 - Blood and Silk
A soft, melodic chuckle drifted from the darkness of the master bedroom.
"Oh, Claire," Elena said, her voice dripping with artificial sympathy. "You really are too smart for your own good. A mere pediatric nurse playing detective. You should have just let the baby stop breathing. It would have been so much cleaner."
The silhouette of Elena appeared in the frame of the open safe room doorway, illuminated only by the pale moonlight filtering through the bedroom windows behind her. In her right hand, she held a sleek, silenced pistol.
"Why?" I demanded, keeping the revolver trained on her center mass, my arms shaking from adrenaline. "He’s four months old! He never harmed anyone!"
"He stands between Marco and seventy million dollars," Elena spat, her calm facade vanishing, replaced by a bitter, ugly snarl. "Alessio ruined everything. He took the empire, he took the family money, and he left Marco with pennies! But the trust... his dead wife's trust... that money belongs to whoever holds the Romano bloodline! With Leo dead and Marco in prison for it, I take total control of the estate as trustee! I spent five years catering to this miserable family, and I will not be left with nothing!"
"Marco loves you," I said, trying to buy time, listening desperately for the sound of Alessio's footsteps in the hall. "He thinks you care about him!"
"Marco is a weak, gambling fool," Elena sneered, raising her weapon. "He made it so easy. He left his ring on my nightstand yesterday. It took two minutes to file down that enamel bead, two minutes to slip it into the crib, and five minutes to pay off Stefan to cut the camera feed. You were the only variable I didn't calculate."
"And you miscalculated one more thing," I said, setting my teeth.
"What's that?"
"I don't miss."
Before Elena could pull her trigger, I squeezed the trigger of Alessio’s revolver.
The gunshot roared in the small safe room like thunder. The recoil slammed up my arm, but the bullet struck Elena square in the shoulder. She screamed, dropping her silenced pistol as she stumbled backward onto the polished mahogany floor of the bedroom.
I didn't wait. I grabbed Leo, held him tightly against my chest, and ran out of the safe room, stepping right over Elena as she writhed on the floor, bleeding onto the Persian rug.
She reached out, grabbing my ankle with her left hand, her face twisted in rage. "You won't... leave this house alive..."
I kicked my foot back with all the force in my body, striking her jaw. Her grip loosened, and I sprinted out into the main hallway.
At the end of the corridor, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead but standing tall like a dark king, was Alessio. Three attackers lay unconscious or dead behind him on the stairs.
His eyes locked onto me and the crying baby in my arms.
"Claire!" he yelled, sprinting down the hall and pulling us both into his chest, wrapping his massive arms around us like a shield. "Are you hit? Is Leo hurt?"
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"We're fine," I breathed, collapsing into his hold, the adrenaline finally giving out. "Elena... she's inside. She's hit."
Alessio looked toward the master bedroom, his dark eyes freezing into absolute zero. "Dominic!" he roared. "Secure the woman. Call the secondary medical crew. And bring my brother to the library."
