Chapter 3 - THE SNIPER’S AMBUSH
The red dot burned against my skin for half a heartbeat.
"Down!" Dante bellowed, moving faster than humanly possible.
He tackled me to the ground just as high-caliber sniper rounds punched through the ballroom’s skylight. The deafening cracks of suppressed fire echoed off the high ceiling, sending shower after shower of safety glass plummeting onto the screaming guests.
Dominic drew a custom sidearm from his coat with terrifying speed, shielding my body with his own while barking tactical coordinates into his earpiece. "Perimeter breach, southwest ridge! Gabriel, take the nest down!"
Gabriel’s grin was feral. "Already on it." He tapped his wrist comm, and outside, the low, ominous thrum of a military gunship shook the foundations of the mansion. Searchlights blazed across the outer forestry, illuminating a sniper team retreating across the Vance family’s private hunting grounds. A single concussive missile fired from the gunship obliterated the tree line, extinguishing the threat in a violent blossom of orange flame.
Inside the ballroom, smoke hung thick. Dante pulled me to my feet, his hands checking my neck, pulse, and shoulders with clinical precision. "She’s clear. Grazed by falling glass, nothing fatal."
I brushed the glass fragments from Dominic’s cashmere coat and stared across the ruined room.
Arthur Vance was crawling toward the broken double doors, weeping openly. His wife had fainted beside the buffet table, and Vanessa Hart was curled into a trembling ball against the marble wall, mascara running down her cheeks like blackened tears.
"Who hired that sniper, Arthur?" I demanded, walking slowly toward the patriarch. Every step I took left a faint imprint of blood and glass on the floor.
Arthur shook his head violently, clutching his chest. "I don't know! I swear to God, Elena, I don't know! Adrian handles the private contracts... he made a deal with the Syndicate in Macau last month to guarantee our merger!"
Dominic’s jaw tightened. "The Black Serpent Syndicate." He locked eyes with Christian. "Adrian didn't just marry Elena to look respectable; he used our hidden offshore accounts under her maiden name as collateral to borrow thirty million dollars from Asian cartels."
The room spun for a second before a cold, blinding fury anchored me. Adrian hadn't just neglected and abused me; he had set me up to be the scapegoat for his catastrophic mob debts. If his business failed, the cartel would hunt me, not him.
"Where is Adrian now?" I asked, my voice deadly level.
Leo walked over, wiping blood from his brass knuckles. "He tried to slip out through the underground wine cellar tunnel. We cornered him at the dock. But sis... he wasn't alone. He was meeting a courier."
Leo tossed a sealed titanium briefcase onto the broken dining table. Dante picked the electronic lock in five seconds flat.
Inside were forged passports, bearer bonds, and a leather dossier containing surveillance photos of me—taken over the last six months. Every doctor’s appointment, every solitary walk in the garden, every phone call I made was documented. But the final document froze the air in my lungs: a forged life insurance policy worth two hundred million dollars on my life, naming Vanessa Hart as the sole beneficiary.
"Thirty lashes weren't meant to punish me," I whispered, the sickening realization settling in. "They were meant to cause sepsis. You were going to kill me tonight."
From the doorway, two guards dragged Adrian back in. His face was swollen beyond recognition, his expensive tuxedo shredded. Hearing my words, his eyes darted in frantic desperation.
"Elena... Vanessa convinced me! It was her idea!" Adrian wept, pointing a shaking finger at his mistress. "She said you were an orphan nobody would ever look for! She said we could take your settlement and start over in Monaco!"
Vanessa shrieked, lunging forward with her manicured nails bared. "You cowardly bastard! You begged me to find a way out of your debts! You said she was useless!"
"Quiet," Dominic spoke, and the sheer gravity of his command silenced both of them instantly.
Dominic walked over to Adrian, towering over the broken heir. "Tomorrow morning at sunrise, every bank account bearing the Vance name will be zeroed out. Every property will be foreclosed. But death is too quick a mercy for what you did to our sister."
Dominic turned back to his men. "Strip them of their jewelry, their shoes, and their coats. Throw them into the streets of the industrial slums with five dollars each and their debts publicly posted on the dark web. Let the Macau cartel find them."
"No! Please! Elena, mercy!" Adrian screamed as they dragged him away. Vanessa kicked and scratched, her designer persona disintegrating into frantic gutter shrieks until the ballroom doors finally shut them out into the rainy night.
I stood amidst the carnage, the adrenaline fading, leaving behind the throbbing, agonizing burn across my back. My knees buckled.
May you like
Dominic caught me before I hit the ground. "Hospital convoy, now!" he roared.
As they carried me out toward the fleet of black vehicles, Dante leaned into Dominic’s ear. "Dominic... we have a problem. The Macau Syndicate’s leader just landed his private jet at the city airstrip. And he’s not coming for Adrian. He’s coming for Elena."
