Chapter 2 - The Glass on the Floor
Marco raised the pistol.
My fingers stopped obeying me.
That was the first thing I understood.
Not that my stepbrother intended to kill me. Not that the whiskey burning through my bloodstream had been poisoned. Not even that three-year-old Mia was trapped between two armed men.
My hands.
They were becoming useless.
The crystal tumbler slipped from my fingers and struck the carpet. Whiskey soaked into the dark Persian weave without breaking the glass.
Marco smiled.
“There it is.”
His voice sounded strangely distant.
I forced my eyes toward him.
“You poisoned me.”
“Technically?” Marco said. “Elena did.”
Mia shook her head violently.
“No!”
Marco's pistol moved toward her.
Every instinct inside me screamed.
My body barely responded.
“Don't.”
The word came out thick.
Marco looked amused.
“You can barely speak.”
Mia slid off my chair and disappeared underneath my desk.
Marco stepped farther into the room.
For thirty-two years, he had played the role of my brother.
Our mothers had eaten Christmas dinner together.
We had attended my father's funeral shoulder to shoulder.
When men came for me outside LaGuardia nine years earlier, Marco had supposedly taken a bullet protecting me.
I had built entire pieces of my empire around that loyalty.
Now I realized I might have misunderstood every important moment of my life.
“Where's Elena?”
Marco smiled again.
“Alive.”
“For now?”
“That depends on you.”
My vision narrowed.
I heard footsteps beyond the office doors.
My guards.
Marco heard them too.
He reached behind himself and turned the lock.
“You always relied too much on walls, Luca.”
He removed a small black device from his jacket.
A radio jammer.
My stomach dropped.
He had planned everything.
“My security team—”
“Half are dealing with a disturbance at the south gate.”
“What disturbance?”
“My men.”
He walked toward the desk.
I tried reaching beneath the edge for the silent alarm.
Nothing.
My shoulder moved an inch.
Marco laughed.
“That poison isn't designed to kill quickly. I wanted you awake.”
Cold rage gave me enough strength to straighten slightly.
“Why?”
“Because dying isn't enough.”
He leaned toward me.
“I want you to understand that everything you protected is about to belong to me.”
From beneath the desk came a tiny voice.
“You're mean.”
Marco froze.
Mia's face appeared beside my knee.
“Mia,” I rasped. “Stay down.”
She ignored me.
Three-year-olds had little respect for hierarchy.
Especially that one.
She crawled out holding the brass paperweight.
Marco aimed downward.
My heart stopped.
“Mia!”
She threw it.
The paperweight flew approximately three feet before crashing against Marco's shin.
It could not have hurt much.
But it surprised him.
That was enough.
I slammed my forearm against the underside of the desk.
A concealed security switch clicked.
Marco heard it.
His expression changed.
“What did you do?”
I smiled despite the numbness crawling across my face.
“My house.”
I swallowed.
“My rules.”
Marco fired.
The suppressed shot sounded like a hard clap.
Wood exploded beside my head.
Mia screamed.
The office doors burst inward.
My chief security officer, Gabriel Russo, came through first.
Marco fired twice.
Gabriel dove behind a marble column and returned fire.
The room erupted.
Glass shattered.
A lamp exploded.
Mia crawled toward me.
I used every remaining ounce of strength to drag her behind my chair.
“Stay down.”
“Uncle Luca, your face looks funny.”
Even then, she sounded concerned rather than afraid.
“I know.”
The door to my private library opened suddenly.
A second armed man appeared.
Not one of mine.
Then another.
Marco had infiltrated the estate.
Gabriel shouted through the gunfire.
“Boss! West corridor!”
I couldn't stand.
Marco knew it.
He moved laterally toward the bookshelves while his men covered him.
“Your kingdom is already mine, Luca.”
Another bullet buried itself in the desk.
I shielded Mia with my body.
Something struck Marco's shoulder.
He staggered.
Gabriel had hit him.
Marco disappeared behind the shelves.
Then I heard a mechanical click.
The hidden passage.
Only six people knew it existed.
Marco had been one of them.
“Gabriel!”
“I see him!”
Gabriel rushed forward.
A grenade rolled through the library doorway.
Not explosive.
Smoke.
The room vanished beneath a white cloud.
I heard coughing.
Screaming.
Boots.
Then tiny fingers were ripped from mine.
“Mia!”
“UNCLE LUCA!”
Her scream pierced through the smoke.
I lunged blindly.
My body collapsed.
My cheek struck the carpet.
Someone kicked the pistol away from Gabriel.
Another gunshot sounded.
Then everything became painfully quiet.
“Mia!”
I could no longer see her.
Could barely breathe.
Through the smoke I saw Marco's shape at the hidden doorway.
He held Mia against his chest with one arm.
The pistol was pressed against her side.
She kicked wildly.
“Put me down!”
Marco stared at me.
Blood darkened his shoulder.
“You know what your greatest weakness always was?”
My fingers clawed uselessly into the carpet.
Marco continued.
“You started caring about people.”
Then someone appeared behind him.
Elena.
Her lip was split.
One side of her face was bruised purple.
A chain hung loosely from one wrist.
“Mia!”
“Mommy!”
Marco grabbed Elena by the hair.
She cried out.
My vision flashed red.
“I'll kill you.”
Marco actually laughed.
“You're dying on a carpet.”
He shoved Elena through the passage.
Mia screamed for her mother.
I tried rising again.
Nothing happened.
Marco backed away.
Before disappearing, he looked directly at me.
“If you survive, Luca, come find them.”
His smile vanished.
“Then Elena can finally tell you why I killed her husband.”
The hidden door slammed closed.
Darkness swallowed the passage.
I lay helpless on the office floor while the poison shut down my body.
Gabriel crawled toward me through the smoke, blood pouring down one arm.
“Boss.”
I looked toward the secret door.
“Mia.”
“We'll get her.”
“Marco took them.”
“I know.”
Gabriel pressed two fingers against my neck.
His face changed.
“Luca, stay awake.”
I tried.
The ceiling rotated.
Gabriel shouted for the medical team.
My heartbeat sounded slower.
Farther away.
Then the last thing I heard before darkness took me was Marco's voice replaying inside my head.
Then Elena can finally tell you why I killed her husband.
May you like
And for the first time in ten years, I understood that the war ahead wasn't about my empire.
It was about a three-year-old girl who had just been dragged into hell because she had tried to save my life.
