Chapter 7 - The Syndicate Boss Puts A Bounty On The Wrong Woman
The heavy wrought-iron gate was designed to withstand a ramming truck.
Romano’s men didn't try to ram it.
Two figures in black tactical gear emerged from the lead SUV carrying a portable thermal lance.
Before they could touch the hinges, a flash of orange fire erupted from the mansion's upper terrace.
A high-caliber sniper round tore through the engine block of the first vehicle.
Steam and motor oil erupted like a geyser.
The two men dove for cover behind the curb.
Gunfire erupted into the night air.
The monitors flickered as tracer rounds cut through the morning mist.
I sat on the edge of the leather sofa in the bunker, gripping the arms until my fingernails turned white.
The sound of muffled explosions vibrated through the reinforced concrete walls.
I watched camera four.
Antonio Romano had not come in person to the gate.
Instead, a loudspeaker on the third SUV crackled to life.
A voice rasped across the estate grounds—deep, mocking, dripping with venom.
“Luca Moretti! You’re harboring a dead maid walking!”
The voice was Antonio Romano’s chief enforcer, a mercenary named Hector Ramos.
“Don Romano offers two million dollars cash to whoever brings us Claire Dawson’s head!” Ramos shouted over the speaker. “She knows what she saw behind that mirror! She saw our Cicero team! She ruined a fifty-million-dollar port deal! Turn the girl over, Luca, and we leave your mansion standing!”
Luca didn't answer with words.
He stepped out from behind a stone column into the courtyard.
Under the harsh floodlights, he looked like a god of war carved from granite.
He raised his rifle.
Three precise shots.
The speaker on top of the SUV shattered into burning metal scraps.
Silence fell over the front yard for two heartbeats.
Then Luca keyed his estate-wide broadcast system.
His voice boomed through the compound, echoing down the empty suburban avenues.
“Tell Antonio Romano,” Luca said, each syllable ringing with lethal authority, “that for every drop of Claire Dawson’s blood spilled on this property tonight, I will take ten limbs from his capos. If he wants the woman who holds my honor, tell him to come take her from my cold hands.”
My breath caught in my chest.
*The woman who holds my honor.*
He wasn't calling me a servant.
He wasn't calling me a maid.
He was claiming me in front of the entire underworld.
A wave of heat rushed through my veins, pushing away the terror that had paralyzed my limbs.
On monitor five, the surveillance feed showed three men slipping through the side rose garden.
They had bypassed the main gate by scaling the security wall with magnetic grapnels.
They weren't aiming for the front door.
They were heading straight for the carriage house.
Toward the cellar ventilation shaft.
They were looking for the safe room.
They were coming for me.
My pulse hammered against my ribs.
I looked at the bunker door.
The green light on the electronic lock suddenly turned yellow.
Then red.
Someone had tapped into the estate’s secondary power grid from the exterior fuse box.
The keypad beeped.
*Override sequence initiated.*
They had a master bypass keycard.
The only person who possessed that emergency bypass card besides Luca was—
Mr. Henderson.
The traitorous butler had told them the bunker override code before he was knocked out.
The steel bolts began to disengage with a sickening metallic clunk.
One.
Two.
Three.
I backed away toward the rear of the bunker.
My eyes darted across the room.
On the steel supply table lay an emergency flare gun, a first-aid kit, and a tactical combat knife with a serrated edge.
I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the heavy combat knife with both hands.
The bandages on my palms stretched and burned, but I didn't care.
I was not going to die in a basement.
Not after surviving Vanessa’s cruelty.
Not after Luca had stood in front of an army for me.
May you like
The heavy door swung outward.
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