Chapter 4 - Blood in the Courtyard
The gunfire started less than two minutes after Matteo left the study.
It wasn't the distant, muffled pop of suppressed weapons. It was a violent, concussive rat-tat-tat of submachine fire echoing up through the stone walls of the east wing, rattling the glass panes of the bookshelves and sending a plume of acrid cordite smoke drifting under the study door.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Lily.
I couldn't just stay in the study and wait. If the intruders breached the east wing, Lily’s bedroom was only three doors down.
I bolted across the room, grabbed a heavy brass candlestick holder from the desk as a makeshift weapon, and slipped out into the hallway. The overhead lights flickered and died, plunging the corridor into total darkness save for the intermittent flashes of lightning illuminating the tall arched windows outside.
“Lily!” I whispered harshly, sprinting down the hallway.
When I reached her bedroom door, I threw it open. The room was empty. The bed was rumpled, and her favorite stuffed rabbit lay abandoned on the floor.
Panic seized my throat. They had already taken her.
As I turned to run back toward the grand staircase, a heavy hand clamped over my mouth from behind, and a strong arm wrapped around my waist, dragging me backward into a dark linen alcove.
I lashed out, swinging the heavy brass candlestick with all my might, connecting hard against shinbone.
A muffled grunt of pain echoed in my ear.
“Easy, easy! It’s just me!”
A familiar, gravelly voice hissed in the dark. I stopped swinging, and the hand slipped away from my mouth. I spun around, squinting through the gloom. It was Marcus, Matteo’s chief head of security, his shoulder stained with a dark, wet patch of blood, clutching a smoking tactical rifle in his good hand.
“Marcus!” I gasped, sucking in air. “Where is Lily? Did they take her?”
“No,” Marcus panted, pressing his back against the wall as another burst of automatic gunfire rattled through the courtyard below. “Elena got her out through the secret panic chute in the nursery. They’re safe in the sub-basement. But the perimeter has been compromised by Moretti’s loyalists. They aren't here for negotiations, Hannah. They’re here to wipe out everyone connected to the old regime.”
“Moretti’s men?” I said, my mind racing. “How did they bypass the biometric gates?”
“We have a rat,” Marcus muttered, gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder. “Someone on the inside gave them the access codes. Come on, we need to get to the armory before—"
Before Marcus could finish his sentence, a deafening explosion rocked the western side of the mansion. The concussive blast blew out the tall stained-glass window at the end of the hallway, sending a shower of razor-sharp colored glass raining down around us.
Through the shattered window, illuminated by the orange glow of a burning vehicle in the courtyard below, I saw the silhouette of Matteo Vescari.
He was fighting like a demon.
Pinned behind a stone pillar near the fountain, Matteo fired methodically with a pistol in each hand, dropping two masked gunmen who were trying to push toward the main doors. But out of the shadows of the burning garden, a third figure emerged, raising a heavy assault rifle directly toward Matteo’s blind spot.
“Matteo!” I screamed, though my voice was instantly swallowed by the roar of the wind.
Without thinking, without calculating the sheer insanity of what I was doing, I broke away from Marcus, ran to the shattered window frame, and grabbed a heavy iron fireplace poker leaning against the wall.
I didn't have a gun. I didn't have tactical training. But I had the element of surprise.
I vaulted through the shattered window frame, landing hard on the wet gravel of the courtyard below, ignoring the sharp stones cutting through the soles of my slippers. I sprinted across the open lawn toward the stone pillar, keeping low as bullets whined past my ears, chipping flakes of limestone off the ancient walls.
The gunman behind Matteo was lining up his shot, his finger tightening on the trigger.
With a feral scream I didn't recognize as my own, I lunged forward and swung the iron poker with all the strength in my body, catching the man squarely across the back of the knees.
He buckled with a sharp yelp, his rifle discharging harmlessly into the sky.
Before he could recover, Matteo spun around, his combat training taking over in a blur of motion. With a brutal, precise strike, the butt of his pistol connected with the gunman’s jaw, sending the man crashing unconscious onto the bloody gravel.
Matteo whirled around, his gun raised, ready to fire at the new threat—only to freeze when he saw me standing there, clutching the iron poker, shivering in the cold rain.
“Hannah?” Matteo breathed, disbelief cutting through the adrenaline in his voice. “Are you out of your damn mind? What are you doing out here?”
“Saving your life,” I snapped, my chest heaving as the rain plastered my hair to my face. “You’re welcome!”
A strange, breathless laugh escaped Matteo’s lips—a mix of sheer terror and fierce, burning admiration. But the moment didn't last.
From the shadows of the burning conservatory archway, a slow, mocking clap echoed across the courtyard.
We both turned.
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Stepping out from the smoke was a tall, silver-haired man in a pristine tailored suit that looked entirely out of place amidst the carnage. It was Arthur Moretti—the man who had murdered my father, framed Matteo, and torn both our families apart thirty years ago.
And resting the barrel of a polished revolver directly against Lily’s temple was one of Moretti’s enforcers, holding the terrified little girl tight against his chest.
