Chapter 5 - THE LION’S DEN
Vincent collapsed face-first onto the frozen floorboards, his breath rattling in his throat like broken glass.
Dante didn't lower his gun. He approached his wounded cousin with the calculated precision of an executioner, using the toe of his leather boot to flip Vincent onto his back. Blood bubbled at the corners of Vincent's lips, staining his pale chin.
"Talk," Dante commanded, his voice devoid of pity. "Why would you betray Marco now?"
"Because the bastard... he shot me," Vincent choked out, clutching his shredded abdomen where a high-caliber bullet had torn through flesh and bone. "He wanted no witnesses. He told his men... to clean the halls. He's going to stage grandfather's death as a stroke brought on by the raid... then blame your little fake marriage for causing the scandal."
Vincent weakly thrust the small digital voice recorder toward Dante.
"Take it," Vincent gasped, his vision clearly fading. "It's all on there. Marco talking to Uncle Carmine... planning the dose in grandfather's IV... and the offshore accounts he used to hire the mercenaries. Just... don't let that son of a bitch take the chair."
Dante took the recorder and pressed play.
Marco’s cold, arrogant voice crackled through the speaker: “The digitalis is already in the saline bag, Carmine. By dawn, the old bastard’s heart will simply give out. Dante will be dead in the snow, the council will have no choice but to ratify me, and we split the docks seventy-thirty.”
The sickening reality settled in the freezing room. Marco hadn't just orchestrated an ambush; he had orchestrated patricide.
"He's going to kill Don Bernardo before the sun rises," I said, horror knotting my stomach. "Dante, we don't have until tomorrow night. Your grandfather has hours."
Dante closed Vincent's dying eyes with two fingers, a gesture that was cold yet oddly respectful of their shared bloodline. He stood up, towering in the dim light of the carriage house, his expression hardening into pure granite.
"Then we don't wait for the council," Dante said, tucking the recorder into his inner coat pocket. "We take the house tonight."
He turned to the wall locker behind the sideboard, pulling out a hidden cache of tactical gear, spare magazines, and body armor. He tossed a Kevlar vest to me. "Put this on beneath your coat."
"Dante, there are dozens of mercenaries crawling around that estate," I said, pulling the heavy vest over my head and tightening the velcro straps around my ribs. "How are we going to get past them?"
"We aren't going around them," Dante said calmly, locking a fresh magazine into his sidearm with a sharp, metallic click. "Luca has secured the western gate with eight of my loyalists. When I trigger the estate’s secondary fire alarm, the automated fire-suppression system will flood the main corridors with halon gas, forcing Marco’s men to evacuate the hallways or suffocate. In the confusion, we hit the master library."
"And me?" I asked, looking up at him. "What is my role?"
Dante walked over to me, his hands settling firmly on the sides of my neck. His thumbs traced along my jawline, holding my gaze with hypnotic authority. "Your role is to survive. You stay on my heel. When we reach grandfather, you keep him alive while I deal with Marco. Can you do that, Aria?"
I took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the phantom weight of my father’s final hospital days—the monitors, the oxygen lines, the medication drips that I had tended to for twelve grueling months when we couldn't afford a home nurse.
"I know how to manage an IV line," I said, meeting his dark eyes with fierce determination. "Get me to the room. I’ll make sure he doesn't die."
Dante leaned down, kissing my forehead with fierce reverence. "Good girl."
Ten minutes later, we were moving through the frozen woods, keeping low beneath the snow-laden pines. The blizzard provided perfect visual cover, the howling wind masking our approach as we crossed the northern terrace of the main manor.
Dante pulled a remote detonator from his pocket. He pressed a sequence of buttons.
A muffled whump shook the foundation of the house as a small incendiary charge detonated in the basement boiler room. Seconds later, a deafening klaxon began to howl throughout the estate. The massive industrial vents across the roof opened, and the hiss of halon gas filled the internal corridors.
Shouts of panic erupted from inside. Mercenaries in gas masks and confused security guards began spilling out onto the stone patios and balconies, disoriented by the shrieking alarms and the suffocating atmosphere inside.
"Go!" Dante commanded.
We slipped through a broken French door on the terrace, entering the east gallery. The halon gas hung thick and low, smelling like scorched metal, but Dante had mapped the vents perfectly; the draft from the shattered door created a clear corridor of breathable air.
Two mercenaries stumbled through the smoke ahead of us, coughing and trying to level their rifles. Dante didn't break stride. He raised his suppressed pistol, firing twice with terrifying, mechanical precision. Both men dropped instantly into the thick Persian carpeting.
We swept through the grand corridor, climbing the marble stairs toward the Don's personal quarters. The entire floor was littered with spent shell casings and shattered portraits.
Outside the heavy double doors of the master library, two elite guards stood watch, wearing tactical gas masks. Dante surged forward before they could acquire their targets. He tackled the first guard, slamming his head against the stone balustrade, while disarming the second with a lightning-fast wrist lock, driving his knee into the man’s sternum. The guard collapsed, gasping for air.
Dante kicked open the massive carved doors of the library.
Inside, Don Bernardo sat slumped in his high-backed leather chair, his breathing shallow and rattling, his skin an ash-gray hue. An IV pole stood beside him, a clear saline bag dripping rapidly into the back of his hand.
Standing beside the fireplace, a glass of scotch in his hand and a sneer on his face, was Uncle Carmine.
And seated behind the massive mahogany desk, holding a gold fountain pen over a stack of legal documents, was Marco.
"Look who survived the storm," Marco said smoothly, setting the pen down and looking up at us without an ounce of fear. "You're too late, Dante. Grandfather has already signed the deed of transfer. By morning, I am the head of the Morelli family."
"He didn't sign anything," Dante snarled, raising his weapon directly at Marco's skull. "You forced his thumb onto an inkpad while you pumped digitalis into his veins."
Carmine went pale, backing away toward the heavy velvet curtains. "Dante, be reasonable—"
"Shut up, Carmine!" Marco snapped, his eyes narrowing as his gaze shifted from Dante to me. "It doesn't matter what's on the paperwork, brother. Look around you. The house is mine. The council is on my payroll. And you brought your little pet straight to the slaughterhouse."
"Aria, the IV," Dante commanded, never taking his eyes off Marco.
I broke into a sprint toward Don Bernardo’s chair.
Carmine lunged forward to block me, his heavy hand reaching out to grab my hair. "Don't touch him, you little bitch!"
I didn't hesitate. Channeling every ounce of terror and fury that had built up inside me since I dropped that dessert tray in Manhattan, I drove the heavy heel of my snow boot down onto Carmine’s instep, then brought my elbow back with all my weight, smashing it directly into his nose.
Bone crunched. Carmine shrieked, clutching his bleeding face and stumbling backward into a glass display cabinet, which shattered around him in an explosion of crystal.
I reached Don Bernardo. His eyes were half-open, glazed and unfocused, his pulse thready and dangerously fast. I immediately clamped the IV line shut with my fingers, ripping the toxic needle out of his swollen vein, and grabbed a clean linen napkin to apply pressure to the puncture site.
"Don Bernardo," I said, leaning close to the old man's ear. "Stay with me. Dante is here. You have to breathe."
The old man’s rheumy eyes flickered, his gnarled fingers weakly curling around my wrist with surprising desperation.
Across the room, Marco's face twisted into an ugly mask of pure rage. Seeing his plot unravel before his eyes, he reached beneath the desk and pulled out a chrome-plated automatic pistol.
"If I can't have the chair peacefully," Marco screamed, leveling the barrel straight at my chest, "I'll take it over your corpses!"
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"Marco, no!" Dante roared.
Before Marco could pull the trigger, Dante threw himself across the room. The deafening blast of a gunshot echoed off the library walls, followed by the sickening sound of a bullet striking flesh.
