Chapter 5 - THE SIEGE OF THE WEST WING
The sound of shattering glass tore through the basement intercom.
Crack-crack-crack-crack.
Automatic rifle fire roared through the upper floors of our home.
The chandeliers I had polished for eleven years were crashing onto the parquet.
The oil paintings of my family were being shredded by shrapnel.
Alessandro did not panic.
The predatory stillness returned to his posture, cold and absolute.
He pulled a second Kimber from the workbench drawer and tossed it across the room.
I caught it by the grip with my right hand.
The checkered walnut was cold against my palm.
Alessandro looked at me, a flicker of surprise passing through his dark eyes.
"Do you know how to use that, Sofia?"
"My father didn't just teach me how to keep books, Alessandro," I said.
My thumb clicked the safety off.
The mechanical snick was steady.
"He taught me how to shoot men who broke into our kitchen."
A faint, dangerous smirk touched the corner of his bloody mouth.
"Good."
He turned to the two guards beside the iron chair.
"Leave Valentina tied to the post."
"If Marco breaches the basement door, put a bullet through her kneecap."
"Alessandro! NO!" Valentina shrieked, thrashing against her restraints.
"Don't leave me down here!"
We ignored her screams.
Alessandro kicked open the heavy iron door of the bunker stairwell.
We ascended into the smoke.
The ground floor of our mansion was an inferno.
The grand foyer was engulfed in flames.
The heavy velvet curtains along the front windows were blazing, sending thick black smoke billowing toward the vaulted ceiling.
Four of Alessandro’s guards lay motionless near the marble fountain, their suits soaked in dark red.
Outside the shattered front doors, three black Escalades idled on the manicured lawn.
Men in tactical gear with assault rifles moved through the burning rhododendrons.
"Rear terrace," Alessandro shouted over the gunfire.
He caught my wrist, pulling me behind the thick limestone wall of the dining room.
A burst of automatic fire chewed through the antique mahogany dining table, sending slivers of polished wood flying into our faces.
"We take the underground tunnel to the carriage house," he said.
"There is an armored Suburban parked in the service bay."
"And what about your men?!" I demanded, ducking as a shotgun blast blew out the china cabinet.
"They have orders to fall back to the tree line!"
He peeked around the corner and fired three rapid rounds.
A shooter in the hallway dropped with a heavy thud.
"We need to get you out of the city, Sofia!"
"I am not running from Marco Russo, Alessandro!"
I leaned around the opposite pillar.
I acquired a target in the smoke—a man in a black tactical vest advancing toward the kitchen door.
I exhaled slowly, just as my father had taught me twenty years ago.
I pulled the trigger twice.
BANG. BANG.
The shooter took two rounds to the center chest.
He collapsed backward through the service doors, his rifle clattering across the tile.
Alessandro stared at me.
His eyes were wide, dilated with shock and an emotion that looked dangerously like reverence.
"You shoot better than my lieutenants," he breathed.
"I had better teachers," I snapped, reloading the chamber.
From the burning front lawn, a voice boomed through an electric megaphone:
"SOFIA MORETTI!"
Marco Russo.
"STEP OUT OF THE HOUSE WITH YOUR HANDS VISIBLE!"
"ALESSANDRO CANNOT SAVE YOU!"
"HE COULDN'T EVEN SAVE YOUR MOTHER!"
My finger froze on the trigger.
My heart slammed against my ribs with brutal, suffocating force.
The smoke around me seemed to turn to ice.
"What did he say?" I whispered.
Alessandro’s face drained of every drop of color.
His arm dropped half an inch.
"Sofia, don't listen to him—"
"ALESSANDRO WAS THERE FOURTEEN YEARS AGO, SOFIA!" Marco’s voice echoed across the burning grass like a demon's laugh.
"ASK HIM WHO BOUGHT THE ARSENIC FROM THE NEAPOLITAN IMPORTERS!"
"ASK HIM WHO PAID THE PRIVATE NURSE TO SWITCH HER PAIN MEDICATION!"
"YOUR MOTHER DIDN'T DIE OF CANCER, DONNA MORETTI!"
"SHE WAS EXECUTED TO SEAL THE LAND LEASE!"
I slowly turned my head toward the man I had loved for fourteen years.
The man who had held my hand at my mother's funeral.
The man who had promised to protect me before the altar of God.
Alessandro was staring at the floorboards.
His jaw was trembling.
He did not deny it.
He could not look me in the eye.
May you like
And in that split second of shattering, agonizing realization, a high-caliber sniper round tore through the window behind us.
The bullet struck Alessandro directly in the center of his chest.
