Chapter 7 - The Siege of Moretti Manor
The foyer exploded into violence.
Luca dropped into a combat roll just as a hail of bullets shredded the marble balustrade where he had been standing seconds before. He came up firing. Three deafening shots rang out, and two of Bellini’s lead gunmen collapsed to the floor, their weapons clattering across the blood-slicked tile.
From the second-floor gallery, Marco and four Moretti snipers opened fire from behind the reinforced stone pillars. Smoke filled the air, acrid and blinding, smelling of cordite and burned sulfur.
I didn't run to the safe room. I couldn't.
Clutching the cedar box against my chest, I knelt behind the heavy baluster, watching the man who had just saved my life fight like a demon unleashed. Luca moved with terrifying fluidity, ducking behind overturned mahogany tables, picking off Bellini’s men with lethal accuracy.
“Find the girl!” Don Bellini barked to his remaining soldiers, pointing a gloved finger straight toward the staircase. “She has the box! Flank the stairs and bring me her head!”
My stomach dropped. Two mercenaries broke away from the main firefight, their assault rifles raised, sprinting toward the grand staircase.
Luca saw them. His eyes widened in pure terror—not for himself, but for me. “Emma! Run!” he screamed, his voice raw.
He tried to turn his gun toward the staircase, but a bullet grazed his left shoulder, spinning him around. Red bloomed across his white dress shirt.
“Luca!” I cried out.
One of the mercenaries was already taking the stairs three at a time, his boots heavy, his face covered by a black tactical mask. He raised his rifle, aiming directly at my forehead.
There was no time to think. Adrenaline took over.
Beside me on the landing stood a solid bronze bust of Luca’s grandfather—weighing at least thirty pounds. With every ounce of strength I possessed, I shoved the heavy sculpture off the marble pedestal.
It plummeted through the air and struck the mercenary squarely in the chest.
With a sickening crunch of breaking ribs, the man tumbled backward down the entire flight of twenty-four marble stairs, his rifle firing erratically into the ceiling before he lay motionless at the bottom.
Luca looked up, blood dripping down his sleeve, his eyes wide in disbelief. Even in the middle of a war zone, he looked at me like I was a miracle.
“Good girl,” he breathed, though the words were lost beneath the gunfire.
The second mercenary reached the base of the stairs, stepping over his fallen comrade. But before he could level his weapon at me, Luca was on him. Luca tackled the man from behind, driving him face-first into the marble floor with bone-shattering force. A single muffled shot ended the struggle.
Luca rose, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his breathing ragged. The gunfire in the foyer was dying down; Marco and his men had successfully eliminated the rest of Bellini’s vanguard.
Only Don Vincent Bellini remained standing, backed against the shattered front doorway, his cigar forgotten on the bloody floor. His hands were raised, but his eyes were filled with venomous defiance.
“You won’t shoot me, boy,” Bellini sneered, breathing heavily. “The Commission won’t allow it. You kill a Don without a council trial, and every family from Chicago to Sicily will hunt you down!”
Luca walked toward the older man, his footsteps slow, deliberate, and final.
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“The Commission didn’t hear my mother’s voice on that tape, Vincent,” Luca said softly, pressing the warm barrel of his pistol between Bellini’s eyes. “I did.”
***
