Chapter 6 - The Melody of the Past
"They didn't break the perimeter," Dominic said, his voice shaking with a rare, terrifying panic as he hung up the phone. "The attack isn't coming from outside. It’s an inside job. Matteo just found the secondary security feeds. Someone turned off the alarms on the north wing three minutes ago."
The realization hit me like a physical blow. The leak wasn't a guard. It was someone high up.
"The girls," I gasped, leaping off the counter.
We ran up the grand staircase, Dominic pulling his silver pistol from his waistband, his movements fluid and lethal. The corridor of the north wing was dark, the emergency lights casting an eerie red glow over the marble floors.
We reached the girls’ bedroom door. It was wide open.
Inside, standing over Chloe’s bed, was a figure in a dark tactical jacket. It wasn't a stranger.
It was Matteo.
"Matteo, step away from my daughter," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register that didn't sound human. It was the voice of a man who had already crossed the line into hell.
Matteo didn't turn around right away. He kept his hand near Chloe's face, a small chemical cloth in his fingers. Chloe was awake, her big eyes wide with a silent, paralyzing terror, her sisters cowering behind her under the sheets.
"You got soft, Dominic," Matteo said smoothly, slowly turning his head to face us. "Ever since this girl walked into the house, you've been playing family man. The Moretti family offered me fifty percent of the docks if I deliver the triplets. With you broken by grief again, New York belongs to us."
"You think you can leave this room alive, Matteo?" Dominic asked, his gun locked onto his oldest friend's forehead.
"I don't need to leave," Matteo smiled, a sickening, arrogant twist of his lips. "Because I didn't come alone."
Suddenly, three men stepped out from the shadows of the balcony, their weapons drawn and pointed directly at Dominic and me.
"Drop the gun, boss," Matteo commanded. "Or we kill the nanny first, then the girls."
Dominic didn't drop the weapon. His knuckles were white. He was calculating the trajectory, the time it would take to kill Matteo before the others could fire. But the math was impossible. There were too many targets, and the children were in the line of fire.
In the suffocating silence of the room, a tiny, shaky voice broke the standoff.
"No," Chloe whispered from her bed.
Matteo blinked, surprised by the sound. "Shut up, brat."
But Chloe didn't shut up. She sat up, her small voice growing louder, carrying a melody I had taught her just days before.
"The... the bird flies high," Chloe sang, her voice trembling but determined.
From behind her, Ava and Mia joined in, their voices syncing with a haunting, beautiful precision. "The... the dark must die. The sun will rise, dry your eyes..."
It was the lullaby. The old Sicilian folk song.
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The three men from the balcony hesitated, their weapons wavering slightly at the surreal, eerie sight of three beautiful little girls singing in the face of death. It was a microscopic distraction—a single second of hesitation.
But a second was all Dominic Russo needed.
