Chapter 5 - THE SIEGE OF D’ANGELO MANOR
Chaos erupted in an instant.
Alarms blared across the estate, red emergency lights pulsing against the dark marble walls. The thunder outside was drowned out by the sudden, terrifying roar of automatic weapons fire echoing from the lower floor.
Nicholas didn't panic. His training as a mafia don took over instantly. He turned to me, his hands grabbing my face, forcing me to look directly into his eyes.
"Listen to me carefully," he commanded, his voice cold, steady, and hard as diamonds. "Marco is going to take you and Leo to the safe room beneath the wine cellar. It is reinforced steel. No one gets in without my biometric code."
"No!" I cried out, my heart dropping into my stomach. "Come with us!"
"I have to lead them away from the east wing," Nicholas said, slamming a fresh magazine into his handguns. "Julian didn't come here just for the ledger. He came to finish me. If I am in that safe room, he will bring down the whole house with explosives until he digs us out. I have to fight him in the open."
"Nicholas, please!" Tears flooded my eyes as I grabbed his lapels. "You can't leave me!"
He leaned down and kissed me hard, deep, a kiss that tasted of steel and desperate promises. "I am coming back to you," he swore against my lips. "I have a family to fight for now. Now GO!"
He shoved me toward Marco, then turned and charged down the hallway toward the gunfire, raising his weapons as he shouted orders to his surviving men.
"This way, Miss Mara! Hurry!" Marco yelled, pulling me toward the grand staircase leading to the nursery.
I ran faster than I ever had in my life. I burst into the nursery, where Rosa was cowering by the crib, clutching Leo. The baby was crying, terrified by the deafening alarms and distant explosions.
"I have him, Rosa! Follow us!" I gathered Leo into my arms, hugging him tightly against my chest, whispering soothing words into his ear even as my own body shook with terror.
We sprinted through the service halls, descending deep into the belly of the mansion. The gunshots sounded closer now, accompanied by the shriek of dying men and the splintering of heavy oak doors. Julian Moretti’s forces had brought an army.
We reached the heavy steel door hidden behind a rack of vintage barrels in the deepest section of the wine cellar. Marco stepped forward, slamming his hand onto the scanner screen.
ACCESS GRANTED.
The heavy steel door hissed open, revealing a fortress-like bunker equipped with monitors, supplies, and communications.
"Get inside! Both of you!" Marco yelled, stepping back into the cellar with his gun raised. "I will lock it from the outside!"
"Marco, no! Come inside!" I screamed.
"My duty is to guard the entrance, Miss Mara!" Marco said, a fierce, loyal smile touching his bleeding lips. "Tell the Don... it was an honor."
He hit the manual close button. The massive steel doors began to slide shut.
Through the closing gap, I saw them.
Three men in black tactical gear burst into the wine cellar. Leading them was a tall, silver-haired man with a cruel, aristocratic face—Julian Moretti. Marco raised his gun, firing two shots before a barrage of bullets tore through his chest. He collapsed into a pool of his own blood.
Julian stepped over Marco’s body, his cold eyes catching mine through the final inch of the closing door. He smiled—a sickening, predatory grin—and raised a small black detonator device in his hand.
"Found you, little ghost," Julian’s voice echoed through the speaker grill just before the door sealed shut with a deafening CLANG.
Inside the safe room, absolute silence fell, broken only by the hum of the air recyclers and Leo’s soft whimpers.
I sank to the floor, pulling Leo into my lap, hugging him close as tears streamed down my face. Rosa knelt beside me, sobbing quietly, reciting prayers in Italian.
On the wall of the safe room, a bank of security monitors displayed black-and-white feeds of the battle raging throughout the estate above.
I watched in horror as the feeds showed absolute carnage. The grand entrance hall was littered with bodies. Smoke filled the corridors. And in the center of the main courtyard, visible through a high window feed, stood Nicholas.
He was bleeding from multiple wounds, his suit torn to shreds, fighting like a demon possessed. Surrounded by five of Moretti's men, he moved with terrifying, brutal violence, dropping them one by one in close-quarters combat.
But then, Julian Moretti walked into the camera frame behind him.
Julian raised a heavy chrome revolver, aiming it directly at the back of Nicholas’s head.
"NO!" I screamed at the screen, pounding my fist against the unyielding glass. "NO! NICHOLAS!"
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He couldn't hear me. He was going to die. The man who had shown me what it meant to be loved, the father of the child crying in my arms, was about to be executed right before my eyes.
And I refused to let it happen.
