Chapter 2 - The Blood-Stained Descent
The deafening report of the 9mm echoed through the high-arched foyer like a cannon blast.
The first guard collapsed backward through the open front doors, his blood splattering across the wet flagstones outside. Before the second man could react, I leaped over the marble balustrade, dropping six feet down onto the foyer floor and slamming my heavy leather boot into his sternum.
He crashed into the wall with a sickening crunch of cartilage. I swung the butt of my Beretta hard across his temple, knocking him unconscious before he hit the rug.
The remaining two guards scrambled for cover behind the heavy velvet drapes near the grand piano, opening fire. Muzzle flashes illuminated the dim foyer, bullets biting into the priceless mahogany paneling and shattering the porcelain vases my father had collected in Asia.
I rolled behind a thick marble column, plaster dust raining down on my shoulders.
"Dominic! Stop this foolishness!" Victoria’s voice echoed from somewhere behind the main staircase, surprisingly cool despite the gunfight. "You are destroying your own house for a woman who won't even survive the night!"
"She will survive!" I shouted, dropping my empty magazine and slapping a fresh seventeen-round clip into the grip. "And you will rot in a cell for what you've done!"
I stepped out from behind the column, firing four controlled shots into the velvet drapes. A heavy groan followed, and one of the Falcone men fell forward, his handgun clattering across the floor. The last guard tried to turn and run toward the service hallway, but I caught him in the back of the knee with a single bullet. He dropped to his hands and knees, screaming in pain.
I walked up to him, grabbed him by his hair, and pulled his head back.
"Where is the key to the lift?" I demanded, pressing the hot barrel of the Beretta against his cheekbone.
"In... in Madam Victoria’s office!" the guard gasped, sweat and tears washing through the gunsmoke on his face. "She... she has the master electronic keycard! The lift won't move without it!"
I shoved his face into the floor, knocking him out cold, and spun around to look for my mother.
She was gone.
The grand doors leading into the east wing were standing wide open, swinging gently in the draft caused by the rainstorm outside.
I sprinted down the long, dark corridor toward her private office—a room lined with heavy oak shelves, silver-framed photographs of dead ancestors, and a massive antique desk that my father had used for thirty years.
The room was in disarray. The floor-to-ceiling iron safe behind the desk stood wide open, its drawers yanked out and emptied onto the Persian rug. Bundles of bearer bonds, European currency, and forged diplomatic passports were scattered across the floor, showing that Victoria had already prepared her escape route long before I landed at the airfield.
On top of the desk lay an open velvet box. Inside it was a thick, silver keycard stamped with a red Falcone crest.
Beside the keycard was a small, leather-bound diary with Grace’s initials embossed on the cover in faded gold leaf: G.R.
My hands shook as I picked up the small diary. I flipped it open to the final entries, written in shaky, desperate black ink:
Day 112: The baby kicked today. He’s strong, Dominic. Just like you. I tried to tell your mother that I could hear your voice through the vent, but she told me you were in Paris with another woman. She showed me a photograph of you at a restaurant with a blonde girl. I know it’s fake. I know your smile when you’re forced to take photos with political people. But I’m so cold, Dominic. They took my warm blankets yesterday because I refused to sign the custody surrender papers.
Day 118: She brought a doctor today. A man named Vance who smelled like cheap gin and formaldehyde. He brought a large metal case. He told me that if I didn't sign the papers naming Victoria as the child's sole legal guardian in the event of my 'complications during birth,' he would ensure the complications happened during labor. I begged him. I told him my father was a doctor, that I knew what he was holding in that syringe. He just laughed.
If I don't survive this night, Dominic, please know that I never stopped wearing my ring until she dragged it off my finger to make you think I left. I hid the ring in the crib when they brought me up to show me where my baby would sleep without me. I hope you find it. I hope you come home.
A drop of my own blood hit the paper, smudging the black ink.
I slammed the diary shut, shoved it into my coat pocket alongside Grace’s ring, and grabbed the silver keycard from the desk.
As I turned to leave the room, the heavy oak doors of the office swung shut with a loud, mechanical thud. The iron deadbolts slid into place from the outside.
Over the intercom speaker mounted near the ceiling, my mother’s voice came through, distorted by static:
"You always were too sentimental, Dominic. Just like your father. He thought he could trust people because he loved them. But love is a poison in our world. It makes you slow. It makes you blind."
"Open this door, Mother!" I yelled, slamming my shoulder against the four-inch-thick solid wood. It didn't even creak.
"The room you are standing in was designed by your grandfather as a panic room during the 1980 turf wars," Victoria said calmly through the speaker. "The walls are reinforced with lead and steel plates. The ventilation system will shut down in three minutes. By the time my brother's men arrive from Palermo to secure the estate, you will be unconscious from oxygen deprivation."
"Grace is my wife!" I screamed, punching the heavy door until my knuckles bled. "She is a Rossi!"
"She was a nobody," Victoria corrected me coldness. "And in twenty minutes, she will be an unfortunate memory. The doctor has already begun the procedure downstairs. The child will be born within the hour, and Grace’s body will be disposed of in the furnace behind the estate."
"Mother!"
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"Goodbye, Dominic," she said softly. "Try to think of this as a lesson in leadership."
The speaker clicked off, followed by the dull, rhythmic hum of the ventilation shafts shutting down one by one. The lights in the office flickered twice and died, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness.
