Chapter 12 - Forty Shells in the Rose Garden and the Hand That Didn't Let Go
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The Moretti family estate in Lake Forest had never looked so desolate.
The midnight fog rolled off the bluff, creeping through the ancient wrought-iron fences and wrapping around the towering oak trees like white spiderwebs. In the center of the estate’s western grounds lay the Rose Garden—a sprawling, walled sanctuary of rare black and crimson roses cultivated by Luca’s grandmother seventy years ago.
Beneath the manicured brick pathways and stone benches lay the private vault containing the family’s ultimate records: original deeds, confidential ledgers, and the physical remains of men who had attempted to destroy the Moretti name over three generations.
Vanessa Bellini had known. During the six months she had stalked the halls of the mansion as Luca’s fiancée, she had systematically searched for the vault’s location. And before she had been dragged to the cellar, she had transmitted the satellite coordinates to a rogue mercenary cell funded by the remnants of Harrington’s dirty money.
They weren't coming for money now. They were coming for total annihilation—to dig up the records, detonate the estate, and burn the Moretti family to the ground.
By 1:00 AM, the perimeter sirens began to wail.
*WHOOOOP. WHOOOOP.*
Red emergency strobe lights washed the limestone facades of the mansion in blood-colored waves. From the second-floor master balcony, I looked through night-vision binoculars toward the tree line bordering the Rose Garden.
Dozens of dark, tactical figures were moving swiftly through the mist, armed with automatic carbines and explosive breaching charges.
Inside the bedroom suite, my mother sat with Sophie in the reinforced panic room behind the walk-in closet, holding the trembling girl in her arms while Teresa Moretti stood watch at the steel vault door, clutching an antique shotgun with steady, venomous resolve. The paralytic had completely cleared from Teresa's veins; she was no longer a victim. She was the matriarch defending her home.
Down in the grand foyer, Luca was strapping a heavy tactical vest over his black sweater.
He had four extra magazines clamped to his chest, a Benelli M4 tactical shotgun slung across his back, and his Sig Sauer holstered at his hip. Beside him, Matteo and twelve loyal house guards were checking their weapons, their faces grim, knowing that tonight was the final stand.
I ran down the grand staircase, my Louboutin pumps discarded for heavy combat boots, wearing a Kevlar-lined tactical jacket Luca had given me.
“Luca!” I called out, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
Luca turned, his expression tightening into an angry, protective mask. “Hannah, I told you to stay in the panic room with Sophie! There are forty heavily armed contractors breaching the western wall! This isn't a boardroom or an airport lounge—this is slaughter!”
“And I am not hiding in a closet while you fight for our home!” I yelled back, stepping right into his face, refusing to back down an inch. “You gave me the black diamond ring, Luca! You told fifty news cameras that I am the Donna of this family! If I hide like a frightened child while our people bleed on the lawn, I have no right to wear this ring or carry this name!”
Luca stared at me. For three seconds, his jaw worked furiously, his dark eyes ablaze with fury, terror for my safety, and an overwhelming, undeniable awe.
Without a word, he reached into the weapons crate on the marble table, pulled out a lightweight tactical submachine gun—an MPX with a holographic sight—and slapped a loaded magazine into the receiver.
He handed it to me.
“Safety is here,” he said, his voice raw with emotion. “Keep the barrel up. Stay behind my left shoulder. If anyone wearing grey camouflage comes within ten yards of you, empty the magazine into their center mass.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, racking the bolt with a sharp metallic clatter.
Luca grabbed the back of my neck, pulled me in, and kissed me hard on the mouth—a fierce, bruising, desperate kiss that tasted of iron, adrenaline, and raw passion.
“If we survive tonight, Hannah,” he murmured against my lips, “we’re taking that honeymoon in Venice.”
“We’re surviving,” I breathed. “Now let’s protect our home.”
We breached the rear terrace doors just as the first mortar shell hit the outer greenhouse.
*KABOOOOM!*
The explosion lit up the midnight sky in a brilliant orange fireball. Shards of antique glass and twisted iron rained down across the brick terrace.
“CONTACT FRONT!” Matteo roared, opening fire with his rifle into the fog.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the mist like deadly fireflies. The deafening roar of automatic gunfire tore the quiet of Lake Forest to shreds.
*Crack-crack-crack-crack!*
Bullets chewed through the stone balustrades, spraying concrete dust across our faces. Luca dropped to one knee, leveling his Benelli shotgun, and fired four thunderous rounds into the advancing skirmish line.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
Three mercenaries collapsed in the rose bushes, their tactical armor shredded by the heavy 12-gauge buckshot.
Luca moved forward relentlessly, using the stone planters for cover, firing with mechanical, lethal precision. I stayed glued to his flank, watching the shadows near the garden gazebo.
Suddenly, a mercenary with night-vision goggles vaulted over the brick wall five yards to our left, raising a suppressed carbine directly at Luca’s exposed side.
Luca was reloading his shotgun, empty shells clattering against the flagstones.
I didn't hesitate. I brought the MPX up, centered the holographic red dot squarely on the mercenary’s chest, and pulled the trigger.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*
A three-round burst punched through the intruder’s vest. The man gasped, stumbling backward, crashing into a trellis of black roses, his weapon slipping into the wet mud.
Luca slammed the final shell into his tube, glanced at the fallen mercenary, and then looked at me, a wild, lethal grin flashing across his soot-stained face.
“Nice shot, wife,” he yelled over the gunfire.
“Told you my father was a hunter!” I shouted back, ejecting the spent casing and keeping my eyes locked on the perimeter.
For twenty agonizing minutes, the Rose Garden was a meat grinder.
The mercenaries, realizing they were facing not an unprepared household but a fortified fortress commanded by a ruthless Don and an unyielding Donna, began to fracture. Matteo’s men flanked them from the carriage house, cutting off their retreat to the lake bluff with heavy machine-gun fire.
One by one, the invaders were neutralized.
The gunfire began to taper off, replaced by the crackle of burning shrubs, the groans of wounded contractors, and the cold hiss of sleet against hot gun barrels.
Forty shells had been fired into the garden. Forty bodies littered the perimeter.
Luca stood in the center of the ruined black roses, his shotgun resting against his hip, his chest heaving with exhaustion.
He turned toward me. His face was streaked with soot and blood, his clothes torn, but he was entirely whole. He dropped the heavy weapon onto the grass, walked over to where I stood shivering against a marble pillar, and wrapped both of his massive, bloodstained arms around me.
I dropped my weapon into the mud, burying my face into the crook of his neck, my hands clutching his tactical vest so tightly my knuckles turned white.
“It's over, Hannah,” he whispered, his voice cracking with tears he refused to let fall. “They're gone. All of them.”
And right at that exact second, from the second-floor balcony above us, a chilling, shrill voice shrieked through the smoky night:
“NOT ALL OF THEM, LUCA!”
We whipped our heads up.
Standing on the master balcony, her hair wild, her designer dress torn and filthy, was Vanessa Bellini.
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She had somehow escaped the cellar during the chaos, her hands covered in grease from the maintenance vents. And wrapped in her left arm, screaming in terror with a kitchen carving knife pressed against her tiny throat, was Sophie.
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