Chapter 4 - Blood and Bullets
The second shot ricocheted off the mahogany bookshelf, showering my shoulders in splinters of wood.
"Get down!" Dante roared, grabbing the front of my shirt and hauling me violently behind the heavy oak desk just as Julian’s mercenaries opened fire. Automatic gunfire chewed through the doorframe and shattered the glass-fronted liquor cabinet, sending bottles of expensive scotch raining down in a sparkling cascade of amber glass and alcohol.
Across the room, Rocco had already cleared his holster, diving behind an overturned leather armchair. In a blur of motion, Rocco’s Sig Sauer barked twice.
Thud. Thud.
Two of Julian’s mercenaries crumpled to the marble floor, their weapons clattering away.
"You son of a bitch!" Julian screamed, clutching his bleeding nose where Dante’s brass paperweight had caught him square in the face. Blood smeared across his pristine white shirt. He scrambled backward toward the hallway, dragging himself up by the doorframe while his remaining two guards laid down suppressing fire. "Kill them! Kill them all!"
"Rocco, flank the east corridor!" Dante commanded, his voice steady and icy, completely devoid of fear. He leaned around the corner of the desk, raised his pistol, and squeezed off two precise shots that forced the remaining guards to duck behind the reinforced stone pillars in the foyer.
"Boss, you're hit!" Rocco shouted, noticing a dark crimson stain spreading across the sleeve of Dante’s shirt where a grazing round had clipped his shoulder.
"It's nothing. Secure the children!" Dante barked, never taking his eyes off the doorway.
I crouched behind the desk, trembling from head to toe, my hands pressed over my ears. The smell of cordite and copper filled the air. This wasn't a movie. This was real. These men were killers, and I was right in the middle of a civil war for an empire I never wanted.
Suddenly, a soft cry echoed from the top of the grand staircase outside.
My blood ran instantly cold.
The nursery.
In the heat of the firefight, the sound of gunfire must have woken the boys. A tiny, barefoot figure in blue striped pajamas appeared at the top of the marble stairs—little Matteo, rubbing his sleepy eyes, looking down at the smoke-filled foyer with wide, terrified eyes.
"Mama?" Matteo’s small, piping voice cut right through the chaos of the room.
Julian, who was frantically backing toward the front doors with his bleeding nose and his shaking gun, stopped. His cold, calculating eyes darted up the stairs and locked onto the child.
A cruel, desperate grin spread across Julian’s bloodied face.
Before Dante or Rocco could react, Julian lunged up the first three steps of the grand staircase, reached out, and grabbed Matteo by the arm, yanking the terrified toddler against his side and pressing the cold barrel of his pistol directly to the boy’s temple.
"Drop your weapons!" Julian shrieked, spattering blood as he screamed. "Drop them right now, Dante, or the boy’s brains paint this marble red!"
The world stopped spinning.
Dante slowly rose from behind the desk, his pistol slipping from his fingers to hit the floor with a dull thud. His face had gone completely, terrifyingly white. The ice in his veins had turned to absolute ash.
"Julian," Dante said, his voice dropping into a lethal, shaking whisper. "Let the boy go. This is between you and me."
"It's between all of us!" Julian laughed hysterically, tightening his grip on a weeping, terrified Matteo. "You always had everything, Dante! The syndicate, the power, and even her!" He pointed his bloody finger down at me crouching behind the desk. "If I can't have the empire, nobody does!"
My heart hammered against my ribs. Amnesia or no amnesia, past life or present life—that was my son.
Something primal and fierce snapped inside my chest. All the fear, all the confusion, all the desperate survival instincts I had cultivated over the last three years coalesced into a single, burning focus.
While Julian was screaming at Dante, his eyes locked on his cousin, he had completely forgotten about the woman hiding behind the desk.
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I didn't think. I didn't plan.
I kicked off my sneakers, dropped to my hands and knees, and scrambled out from behind the desk, darting toward the heavy oak service door that led into the domestic wing.
