Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty One
Adrian
The room goes dead silent after I say it.
Every adult in the room understands me.
The children do not.
Thank God for that.
Charlotte’s lower lip starts to wobble anyway, because children do not need details to understand fear. They read it in the bodies around them.
Caterina looks at me like I have just ripped the floor out from beneath her.
I do not have time to soften it or coddle anyone right now. My people are out there, and they need me.
“Listen to me,” I say, keeping my voice low enough not to frighten the children more, hard enough that no one misses the command.
“This room is reinforced. The door is steel. The frame is anchored into concrete. Panels are rated. Supplies are in the cabinet on the right. Water, first aid, spare radio, flashlight. Keep trying the phones, and if you get through, call your father and get more of my people here for reinforcements. If the feeds come back, good. If they don’t, no one opens that door unless I, or Luca Conti himself, is standing on the other side of that door.
Their goal isn’t to kill him. Not without maximum damage first. You are that damage. ”
I say the last few words quieter, hoping to spare the children.
Caterina’s eyes sharpen. “Adrian.”
“No.”
“You cannot just—”
“I can.” I look at her, and for one second, the room falls away.
“You’re injured.”
“I’m functional.”
“Barely.”
“I’m also wasting time while my people are out there,” I say sternly.
Her jaw tightens. Fear and fury warring within her.
Let her be angry. Anger will keep her upright.
“Going out there alone is suicide,” Teresa says.
“We don’t leave our people behind,” I say simply.
Her mouth tightens, but for once, she knows she can’t argue back.
I look at Vito and Nico.
I point to the cabinet. “There are two long guns in the rear compartment. Manual lock, code is six-one-seven-two. Ammunition underneath. Extra sidearm in the small case. If anyone breaches this room who isn’t me, make them pay.”
Nico swears viciously under his breath. “I hate this.”
I turn toward the door.
Caterina has not moved.
She is standing between me and the door.
“Move,” I tell her again.
“No.”
This time her voice is not breaking.
This time it is pure Conti.
“You are not going out there alone.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Then don’t waste it pretending I’m going to step aside because you use that voice.”
My temper flashes hot.
Not at her.
At the situation. At the black screens. At the bodies on the lawn. At whoever planned this well enough to get this close. At the fact that she is standing in front of me in a wine-colored dress she picked out for dinner with her siblings tonight, and now has fear in her eyes.
“You think I want to leave you in here?” I ask, voice low.
“I think you’re too ready to run toward bullets,” she says stubbornly.
“I’m ready to do my job.”
“Protecting me is your job.”
The words hit me hard.
Because they’re not true anymore.
Maybe they never were.
Protecting her was never just a job. It was always more than that.
And I can’t say any of that now, in this room, in front of her family, with gunfire possibly minutes away from the door.
I step closer and lower my voice so only she hears. “Cat.”
Her lips part.
That name gets through in a way the command does not.
“I need you to move,” I say. “Please.”
That does it.
Not because she wants to.
Because she hears the thing under it.
The request. The trust. The fact that I am asking her to let me walk out of this room, and she knows exactly what that costs.
Her chin trembles once. Then she steps aside.
I do not touch her.
If I touch her, I may not leave.
I move to the door and bring up the panel. The internal system is still alive, barely. Door power is intentionally independent.
I unlock the first mechanism manually.
I hear one of the girls start crying behind me. They may not know what’s going on, but the feeling of fear is palpable.
“Lock it behind me,” I say, and pull the door open an inch to listen.
The basement outside is dark beyond the emergency strips. No footsteps. No voices. No gunfire close enough to hear through the reinforced room and concrete walls.
I would rather hear gunfire.
Silence means they may already be inside.
I take one breath.
My side pulls, and I ignore it.
Before I step out, Caterina says my name.
“Adrian.”
I stop and turn my head.
She crosses the two steps between us and grabs the front of my shirt.
For a second, I think she is going to pull me back.
She does not.
She kisses me hard.
Desperate enough that it tastes like goodbye, and angry enough that it tells me she will never forgive me if I let it become one.
Then she releases me.
“Come back,” she orders.
I nod and step into the darkness, pulling the door shut behind me.
I wait long enough to hear the lock slide into place.
The basement hallway is dim, lit only by the red emergency strips along the floor and the weak spill from a backup fixture near the stairs. The air smells faintly electrical from the failed power system.
I stay still for three seconds.
Listen.
And hear a faint sound above.
Not a footstep. More like a scrape, weight shifting.
Someone inside the house is trying to keep their presence a secret.
I move.
Slowly at first, gun up, body close to the wall. The wound in my side gives one hot warning as I angle around the first corner. I let the pain pass through and keep going.
The basement is not the fight.
The fight is upstairs.
But the breach may be down here, too, and if anyone finds the safe room before I neutralize enough of the threat, the people inside become trapped prey.
I make for the utility panel first.
If they killed the backup, they either found the exterior generator feed or the internal switch. The cameras blacked out all at once, which means they likely cut main and backup at the control junction. That requires knowledge of the house.
I take the service stairs up instead of the main basement stairwell. It empties near the pantry, close to the kitchen hall, which is narrow. Bad if someone waits at the top. Better if I need to come up behind the movement near the dining room.
At the top, I pause.
The house feels so different from just a little while ago.
No dinner sounds. No staff movement. No low music from the speakers that Caterina had been playing earlier. Only a distant muffled pop from outside, suppressed gunfire maybe, then another.
My people are still fighting.
Good. Alive then.
Most of them, hopefully.
I ease the door at the top of the service stairs open and look through the gap.
One staff member is on the floor near the pantry.
Female. Caterina’s staff. Not one of mine.
I pause long enough to see her chest moving. Alive.
I step out, clear left, clear right, then move to her quickly. Her eyes are open, wide with terror. A strip of tape covers her mouth. Her wrists are bound.
Not dead. So, they are not killing everyone.
They’re being selective.
I cut her hands free with the blade from my pocket and pull the tape away carefully enough not to tear skin.
She tries to speak.
I put one finger to my lips.
Her whole body shakes.
“Basement storage,” I whisper. “Hide. Do not go near the far door. Do not make any sound.”
She nods rapidly.
I help her up and point her down the service stairs. She moves, limping slightly, but moving.
Then I hear a male voice from the dining room.
“Clear.”
Another voice answers from the entry hall. “Find them.”
I move toward the sound, every part of me focusing in on them. I reach the edge of the kitchen arch and use the reflection in the glass cabinet to see.
Two men in black tactical clothing in the dining room.
One near the table. One by the sideboard.
Suppressed weapons. Professional posture.
The yellow roses are knocked sideways, water spreading across the tablecloth.
Something hot and ugly moves through me.
I step back into the kitchen, take the carving knife from the block beside the counter, and slide into the shadow near the archway.
The first one comes because I make him come.
A small sound. Barely anything. The edge of my boot against the lower cabinet, just enough to register as movement from the kitchen.
His head turns.
He lifts one hand to signal the other man and starts toward me.
Good. Split up.
He enters the kitchen with his weapon high, sweeping left first.
Wrong direction.
I hit him from the right.
One hand clamps over his mouth. The other drives the knife in under his ribs, hard and angled up. His body jerks once against mine. I keep him upright, keep the weapon trapped against his chest before it can clatter, and lower him silently to the floor.
He is dead before his knees touch tile.
I strip the weapon from his hand and set it on the counter without a sound.
But the encounter wasn’t entirely soundless, which is just fine with me. It means the other man is suspicious.
Suspicious enough to come.
“Marco?” he says quietly.
When there’s no answer, the second man comes faster.
I stay low behind the island, the knife slick in my hand, my side burning from the sudden movement. Pain flashes hot, but I can’t afford to pause and let the wave pass through naturally.
I ignore it.
The man steps into the kitchen, weapon up.
He sees the body.
His mouth opens.
I am already moving.
I catch his wrist and drive the barrel of his weapon into the side of the refrigerator before he can fire. Metal hits metal with a dull thud, too soft to carry far. His elbow comes at my face. I turn with it, let it glance off my shoulder, and slam my forearm across his throat.
He fights.
Strong but not trained.
He tries to bring a knee up into my side. I twist, barely avoiding the worst of it, and pain rips through me anyway.
No time.
I drive him backward into the pantry wall, hard enough to knock the breath from him, then hook my foot behind his ankle and take him down. He hits the floor on his back. I go with him, one knee pinning his weapon arm, my hand clamped over his mouth.
His eyes are wide now.
I bring the knife down once. Fast and clean.
He goes still under me.
I hold him there for two more seconds to make sure there is no sound, no final movement, no weapon sliding across the floor.
Then I release him and sit back on my heels for half a breath.
My side is screaming.
I press a hand to it and feel warmth.
Not much, but enough.
“Damn it,” I whisper.
I force myself up, strip the second man’s weapon, take his radio, and drag both bodies deeper into the pantry, where they will not be immediately visible from the dining room.
Then I move back to the archway and look out.
Dining room clear.
Entry hall unknown.
Upstairs unknown.
Exterior still active.
Safe room sealed.
Caterina alive.
I hold onto that last one for half a second longer.
Then I keep moving. I need to reach the main panel and bring power back to the cameras.
I need communications.
I need outside status.
I need to know how many are inside.
The front hall is dim, the lights flickering because someone has hit the house power but not fully killed the emergency system. The front door is closed. One body near it. Nick’s security. Dead. Another near the side table. One of my people.
Andrew.
For one second, everything in me stops.
Andrew is on his back, blood dark across his shirt, eyes half open.
My jaw locks.
No.
Grieve later.
I move to him, crouch, check.
There’s a pulse. Weak, fluttering. Alive but barely.
“Boss,” he breathes.
“Don’t talk.”
“At least… dozen,” he forces out. “Jammer… van… east service road.”
That explains the phones.
His hand twitches toward his weapon.
I press it back to his chest, then I drag him across the entrance hall and to the closet. I grab a sweater from one of the hangers—from the feel of it, it’s definitely expensive—and press it against his wound hard.
He hisses.
“You have to keep the pressure on. Can you do that?” I ask.
He nods and puts his hand over mine.
“Stay alive.” I close the door of the closet behind me.
A dozen.
I put down two, and I know a few more have been taken out. But I don’t know how many are left. I don’t know if there are more inside.
I need those damn cameras. And I need to take out that jammer van.
I need too many things at once.
A floorboard creaks above me.
I look up.
Someone on the second floor. Someone who came here with the intent to kill Caterina and her family.
Hardening myself to the pain and feelings, I move toward the stairs.