Chapter 24
The entire cabin had turned into a slaughterhouse.
The air was thick, heavy with gunpowder smoke, the smell of fresh blood, and scorched wood.
Gunshots tore through the darkness in brutal flashes, lighting up faces twisted by violence for fractions of a second.
Glass shattered like fragile bones. Wooden walls exploded into sharp splinters that sliced skin like razors.
Hoarse screams mixed with howls of pain and the metallic click of empty magazines.
Downstairs, Eleonora and Leonardo fought like cornered animals. Back to back. Breathing hard. Blood running down her arms.
She fired with cold precision, every shot seeking the center mass of the invaders pouring through the shattered door. When the ammunition ran out, she didn’t hesitate. She dropped the pistol, pulled her knives, and threw herself into close combat.
“Behind you!” she shouted, her voice rough with fury.
Leonardo spun at the exact moment, meeting the invader with an elbow that shattered the man’s nose with a wet crack. Hot blood sprayed across his face. He drove the knife into the bastard’s throat, twisting the blade as the body convulsed.
“They just keep coming,” Leonardo growled, panting. “Like rats crawling out of the sewers.”
“Then we’ll drown every last one of them in their own blood,” Eleonora answered, plunging her knife into another invader’s abdomen and ripping upward, opening him like a slaughtered animal.
The two kept moving, covering each other’s flanks. Every strike was brutal, without mercy. A kick that snapped a knee. A punch that caved in ribs. A stab that punctured a lung. The floor grew slick with blood.
At the back of the cabin, Vincenzo’s brothers turned the hallway into a true lead hell.
Mateo held a heavy machine gun, his body shaking with the recoil as he poured continuous fire through the blown-out window. Bodies fell outside, piling up like sacks of meat.
“NO ONE TOUCHES MY NIECE!” he roared, his voice pure hatred. “I’ll skin every single one of you, you sons of bitches!”
Lorenzo, beside him, covered the blind spots with a rifle, shooting any shadow that moved between the trees. His smile was sick, almost happy in the middle of the massacre.
“Come on…” he murmured between shots. “Come more. I want to smell your guts bursting.”
They fell. One after another. But more always came. An endless tide of paid killers, sent to wipe out the entire family. Each wave brought more bullets, more grenades, more screams.
Upstairs, the bedroom felt like a sanctuary of terror.
Catarina cried without stopping. The sharp, desperate wail of the newborn cut through Sara’s heart. Every explosion made the tiny body tremble violently against her chest. Every gunshot echoed like thunder inside the walls.
Sara held her tightly, rocking her uselessly, silent tears streaming down her face.
“Shh… Mommy’s here,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Mommy won’t let anything happen to you…”
But the words sounded empty. Lies told to a child who didn’t understand that the world outside wanted to kill her before she even got the chance to live.
Sara looked at her daughter. At the eyes squeezed shut from crying. At the tiny mouth open in pure terror. And something inside her broke.
Fear evaporated.
In its place was born a primitive, animal rage. A maternal fury so deep it burned like acid in her veins. Her eyes went to the pistol Vincenzo had left on the bed. Her fingers trembled as she touched it.
She kissed the baby’s forehead—an almost sacred gesture in the middle of the chaos—and positioned her body between the door and the child. A wounded lioness. Ready to die killing.
Meanwhile, in the dark corridors of the middle floor of the cabin, the silence was worse than the gunfire.
Vincenzo advanced slowly, rifle lowered, his face covered in someone else’s blood and sweat. His steps were silent, predatory. Until the voice came from the shadows—low, controlled, loaded with years of poison.
“It’s been a while, boy.”
Vincenzo froze. His blood iced in his veins for a second before boiling.
He knew that voice. He would know it in hell.
“I was already expecting you… you old bastard,” Vincenzo answered, his voice rough with restrained hatred.
A low, cruel laugh echoed down the hallway. The figure emerged slowly from the darkness: elegant, imposing, dressed in black as if he were attending a funeral. Eleonora’s father. The man who had orchestrated all of this.
Their eyes met. Two predators who had hated each other for a long time.
“You managed to destroy a plan that took years to put together… All for some random whore,” the old man spat with contempt.
“You could have stayed with Eleonora, been the obedient son-in-law you were supposed to be. But you turned my daughter—your official wife—into your accomplice in this mess to protect the whore you knocked up. I can only imagine the shame your father is feeling right now, discovering that the heir to his empire has disgraced the entire family like this.”
Vincenzo gripped the rifle so hard his knuckles turned white.
“So I would die the way you wanted, you fucking pig. You already knew your daughter had someone. You never wanted an alliance. You wanted to infiltrate the family and kill us all quietly. You would have tried to kill us either way—going after my family was just an excuse. Your only goal is to rule Italy alone.”
The old man smiled—a sick smile that never reached his eyes.
“Smart boy… Or maybe not so smart. Look at you… shaking with love for a weak woman and a brat who barely left the womb. You’re vulnerable. Weak. Alone. You already know how this ends…”
Vincenzo’s blood boiled past the edge of sanity. The image of Sara and his daughter flashed before his eyes like a whip.
“You’re wrong,” he growled, his voice low and lethal.
“Now I have a reason to kill you with my bare hands. I’m going to rip out your throat and make you swallow your words while you choke on your own blood.
And then I’m going to hunt down the rest of your filthy bloodline until there’s no one left to carry your dirty name. ”
The old man tilted his head, amused.
“And that’s why your daughter is going to grow up without a father…
Because you’re willing to die for them, and that amuses me.
” He paused. “I’m going to kill your whore first. Slowly.
I want you to hear her screams. Then I’ll take the child…
and make it last. You’ll have that sound in your head until you can’t take it anymore and put a bullet in your own brain… ”
The hallway seemed to shrink. The air grew heavy, electric.
Vincenzo slowly lowered the rifle. The old man did the same.
No weapon would be enough now. This was too personal. Too primitive.
“You like acting like a psychopath,” Vincenzo said, taking a step forward, every muscle tensed like ropes about to snap. “So let’s see if you can back up that monster you love to pretend to be… Because you’re forgetting just one thing…”
The old man smiled for the last time.
“And what’s that?”
For a second, time stopped.
“That I know how to be a monster too.”
They charged at the same time.
The impact was brutal. Fists like hammers. Vincenzo landed first—a punch that shattered the old man’s jaw with a loud crack. The man countered with a knife slash that tore open Vincenzo’s shoulder, hot blood spraying.
They collided like beasts.
Punches.Elbows.Knees.
The sound of flesh striking flesh, bones grinding, grunts of pain and fury. Vincenzo slammed the old man into the wall, the impact knocking pictures to the floor. The old man clawed at his eyes, trying to blind him.
Blood ran. Breathing was ragged. Pure hatred.
The fight was savage. No rules. No mercy.
And neither of them intended to leave that hallway alive.