Chapter 6 - The Traitor’s Trap
“Get down!” Vittorio roared over the thunderous fire!
He pulled a sleek black Sig Sauer 9mm from his shoulder holster—a weapon he hadn't carried in a month—and racked the slide with one smooth, deadly motion.
Mara pressed herself against the wood, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. “Who is that? The Valenti family?”
“No,” Vittorio snarled, his obsidian eyes burning with lethal realization as he listened to the rhythm of the gunfire outside. “Those are submachine guns from my own private armory. The security perimeter didn't even sound an alarm.”
The heavy double doors of the library were kicked open!
Three men in tactical gear stepped into the room, their weapons raised.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Vittorio leaned around the desk, firing three precise shots. All three men dropped instantly to the hardwood floor, their weapons clattering against the rugs.
Baron launched himself through the smoke like a black thunderbolt, pinning a fourth gunman who tried to breach the side terrace, tearing the weapon out of the man’s hands with brutal efficiency!
Vittorio grabbed Mara’s hand, pulling her up. “The safe room is in the cellar. Move!”
“Not without you!” Mara yelled back, holding onto his hand tightly.
Before they could reach the door, a shadowy figure stepped into the hall frame, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries.
It was Lucian Bellandi.
Beside him stood Dr. Edmund Crane, holding a suppressed tactical pistol.
Lucian smiled—a bitter, desperate, twisted smile. “I must admit, brother... you recover far too quickly. I thought the digitalis would have left you bedridden for six months. I had to accelerate my schedule.”
Vittorio stepped directly in front of Mara, shielding her completely with his broad frame. His gun was locked onto Lucian’s chest. “You sold out our family to Victor Valenti.”
“Valenti offered me fifty percent of the city shipping networks, Vittorio!” Lucian spat, his polite facade entirely gone. “Father gave you everything! He gave you the empire, the loyalty, the reputation! And what did he leave me? Your shadow! I was tired of living in your damn shadow!”
“So you hired Crane to poison me,” Vittorio said, his voice dropping into a dark, calm abyss that was far more terrifying than his anger.
“Crane was brilliant,” Lucian laughed coldly. “A slow, natural death. But then she ruined it.” Lucian pointed his weapon directly at Mara’s head. “The chubby little agency nurse with her blood tests and her stupid dog. If she had just let Crane put that syringe in your line in the ambulance, you would have died quietly of 'trauma-induced cardiac arrest,' and I would be Don today.”
Mara stepped slightly to the side, looking Lucian straight in the eye despite the barrel pointed at her face. “You’re an idiot, Lucian. You sold your own blood to a rival family who will put a bullet in your head the second they get what they want from you.”
Lucian’s jaw twitched. “Shut up!”
“She’s right, Lucian,” Dr. Crane muttered nervously from beside him, looking around the dark hallway. “Vittorio’s perimeter guards aren't responding. We need to end this now before—”
BOOM!
A heavy explosion shook the front gates of the estate! The lights in the hallway flickered and died, plunging the manor into darkness illuminated only by the red emergency backup strips along the baseboards!
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Lucian panicked, swinging his weapon toward the front hall. “What the hell was that?”
In that half-second of distraction, Vittorio struck.
