Chapter 6 - Betrayal at Rosalind’s
Thursday night was cold and rainy.
Emma finished packing the last container of Chef Walter’s famous beef stew into the van for the local shelter. The restaurant was closed, the dining room lights dimmed.
Lucian’s head security officer, Diego, stood near the front entrance with two armed guards, watching the street carefully. Lucian himself was delayed at a board meeting downtown but was en route to pick up Emma personally.
Emma walked into her private office in the back of the restaurant to retrieve her coat.
Suddenly, the lights in the restaurant flickered and went completely dark.
Emma froze. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She reached into her drawer for the small concealed handgun Lucian had taught her to use weeks ago.
Before her hand could reach the weapon, the back door of her office was kicked open with a terrifying crash.
Three armed men in tactical gear rushed in.
Emma grabbed the gun, racking the slide just as Lucian had shown her, and pointed it at the lead man. “Don't move!”
“Put the gun down, little girl,” a voice sneered from the darkness.
Lorenzo Falcone stepped into the room, holding a silenced pistol. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and frantic. Behind him, through the glass door of the office, Emma saw Diego and his guards lying unconscious on the floor—surrounded by heavy tear gas.
“Lorenzo,” Emma said, her hands trembling slightly, but keeping the gun leveled at his chest. “If you shoot me, Lucian will hunt you down to the ends of the earth.”
“Lucian is already a dead man!” Lorenzo spat, his voice laced with unhinged madness. “You ruined my finances! You handed my accounts to the feds! You’re just a cheap waitress who thought she could play Godfather!”
Lorenzo lunged forward. Emma pulled the trigger—BANG!
The bullet struck Lorenzo in the shoulder, sending him staggering back with a cry of pain. But his two enforcers instantly tackled Emma to the floor, knocking the gun from her grip. A heavy cloth soaked in chloroform was slammed over her face.
Emma fought wildly, kicking and scratching, but the sweet, chemical fumes quickly invaded her lungs. The world spun out of control, dark shadows closing in, until everything vanished into blackness.
Ten minutes later, Lucian’s Maybach pulled up to the front of Rosalind’s.
Lucian stepped out into the rain, his brow furrowed when he noticed the front doors were slightly ajar and the restaurant was dead silent.
A terrible intuition seized his chest.
Lucian drew his custom titanium pistol and charged into the restaurant, his enforcers trailing behind him.
He found Diego groaning on the floor, coming around from the gas. In the back office, the furniture was overturned. Blood dripped on the carpet from Lorenzo’s shoulder wound.
And on the desk lay Emma’s phone.
Beside it was a note written in marker:
“If you want your fake wife back alive, bring fifty million in bearer bonds to the old steel mill at the docks by midnight. Come alone. No cops, no guards. Or I send her back to you in a box.”
Lucian held the note in his hand. His body trembled with an apocalyptic, terrifying rage.
The air in the room felt suffocating. The cold, calculating Don who calculated every move vanished. In his place stood a man whose entire world had just been stolen from him.
He pulled out his phone and called his main strike force.
“Diego,” Lucian’s voice was unnervingly quiet—a voice that meant total annihilation. “Gather every man we have. Every gun, every rifle, every armored vehicle. We are going to the docks.”
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“Sir, Lorenzo said to come alone—”
“I don't care what Lorenzo said,” Lucian growled, his eyes blazing with murderous dark fire. “He touched my wife. Tonight, the Lombardi alliance ends forever.”
