Chapter 7 - THE PENTHOUSE AMBUSH
The morning light was just beginning to fracture the dark skyline of Manhattan, painting the clouds in bruised shades of purple and gold. As my elevator ascended to the top floor of Moretti Tower, the ominous silence confirmed my worst fears.
The heavy mahogany doors of the penthouse hung off their hinges. In the foyer, two of my loyal bodyguards lay dead in pools of blood.
I stepped through the wreckage, clutching my bruised ribs, my Kimber .45 raised and ready. My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped beast, the lingering weakness from my cardiac attack threatening to drag me down, but I forced my legs forward through sheer willpower.
In the vast living room overlooking the sunrise, the scene made my soul freeze.
Marco stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries in full tactical body armor. On the marble floor, Sophia lay half-conscious, bruised and weeping, her fingernails clawing at the stone as she tried to crawl toward her daughter.
Marco held Lily by the wrist. But my little girl wasn't crying.
She stood rigid, her emerald eyes burning with an icy defiance that mirrored my own. In her small hand, hidden behind her back, she gripped a heavy bronze fountain pen from my desk.
"Drop the weapon, Dominic," Marco ordered, pointing his custom revolver directly at Lily’s temple. "Or the little girl gets her brains splattered across your million-dollar view."
"Let them go, Marco," I said, lowering my pistol by an inch, keeping my breathing steady. "You want the money. You want the empire. Take the offshore accounts. Take the ports. Just leave my family out of this."
"You think this is just about money?" Marco laughed, a manic, desperate sound. "They thought your love made you weak! Look at you! Dominic Moretti, the feared King of New York, begging on his knees for a bastard and a dying woman! You were a god when you had no heart. But the moment that little brat grabbed your hand on Fifth Avenue, you became mortal."
"You're wrong about one thing, Marco," I said softly, stepping forward into the morning light, feeling the power surge through my battered body.
"And what's that?" Marco sneered.
"My love didn't make me weak," I growled, locking eyes with Lily and giving her a barely perceptible nod. "It made me indestructible."
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At that exact second, Lily jammed the sharp bronze pen with all her might into the fleshy part of Marco’s thigh.
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