Chapter 41
Chapter Forty One
Luca
The foyer is too still in the dark, no hum of the vents, no filter in the pool. Just moonlight scattered across the floor in patterns. I’ve got a gun in my hand and Roberto at my shoulder, his own drawn, his voice low and fast.
We move like we’ve done it a thousand times, because we have.
“Cut the main at the street,” he murmurs, low enough that the sound barely leaves his throat.
“Gen shed didn’t pick up because the trip was inside the casing.
Smart little bastards. Backup didn’t kick—someone pulled the transfer.
Gate’s compromised. They got over the south wall and through the hedgerow.
We’re clearing them as they surface—pairs, mostly.
Don’t know numbers yet. They’re moving fast and quiet. ”
“Russos,” I say.
He nods once. “Looks that way.”
There’s a distant thud, and a shout that’s cut off suddenly on the front lawn. Somewhere in the back, a dog barks. I taste metal under my tongue.
“How many of ours up?” I ask.
“Everyone,” Roberto says. “Nico and Vito are scouting. Caterina is in her room. You locked your door on the way out, so Elena is safe. Our boys have the perimeters in triangles. We’re taking them out quickly. They’re good, Luca. Not good enough.”
The whole family stayed the night: Caterina in the guest wing; Vito took a room that faces the drive, wanted to hear the engines if any got close; Nico couldn’t sleep, so he took guard duty; Antonio’s on the cameras, on the generator, on the comms; Giovanni handled security.
Everyone here because I asked. Because after a day where my son and daughter were shot at, where the woman I loved felt the heat of a bullet on her face while carrying my child, I wasn’t letting anyone sleep anywhere else.
It felt like control this afternoon. Now it feels like I’ve gathered everyone I love in the same place to be picked off.
“I should check on Elena,” I say.
“You said you locked the room down before you left, right?” Roberto asks.
“Yeah, but I should tell her what’s going on. Move her somewhere safe.”
“No one’s inside,” he says.
No one was inside ten seconds ago. Doesn’t mean anything.
“I’m going.”
Roberto doesn’t argue. “I’m with you.”
We pivot together, shoulder to shoulder. The stair runner eats our steps as I take them two at a time.
Muscle memory takes me up even as a hundred calculations fan out in my head—angles, windows, the fact that the south side of the house sits in more shadow without the pool lights bleeding color over the lawn. I’ve lived in this layout more years than I want to count. I could draw it blind.
“Left wing is clear,” a voice whispers in my ear—Nico on comms, filtered through my phone. “Two down outside the mudroom. Four unaccounted for.”
“Copy,” Roberto murmurs into his cuff without breaking stride. “We’re on second-floor sweep, north corridor.”
We hit the landing, and the hallway stretches before us, a dim tunnel, light stitched in along the floor from slats not fully shut. A shadow slides across the far wall. The chandelier swaying. Then—
A thud. Not a shot. A body, maybe.
Coming from my room.
I don’t remember telling my legs to run; they just do. Roberto is at my shoulder, gun angled, mouth thinned to a line. The distance from landing to door stretches on and on, like a trick of the mind. I don’t slow.
The distance from landing to door shrinks and stretches and then snaps back to its true length. I still don’t slow. The knob resists under my hand. Something is braced on the other side, wedged tightly, turning the door into a wall.
Another sound, short and strangled, follows, and then a voice, high with pain. Elena.
“Elena!” My voice is a roar, shredding my throat. “Elena!”
Every bad night I ever had tightens into a single point under my breastbone and lodges there. Carlotta getting weaker and weaker before dying in the bed on the other side of this door, without me there. Lucia’s face before she walks through a door, and I never see her again.
Not again. I can’t lose her.
I can’t.
I won’t survive it.
“Together,” Roberto says. His voice is steel. “On three.”
I plant my feet, square to the wood, shoulder cocked. “One—two—”
We brace and hit. The door gives half an inch and punches back like a chest. The shock runs down my spine and flashes my teeth. A heavy oak cabinet behind it. The one that sits by the door and holds nothing but fucking flowers.
I curse the damn thing.
“Again,” I tell Roberto.
We rear back and hit together.
The frame shudders. The white paint spiderwebs around the lock plate. Something behind the door skids an inch and digs in. My shoulder blooms with pain. I lean into it and let it strengthen me.
Another cry of pain from the other side fuels me.
I step back two paces, set, and ram the door with Roberto.
The lock plate tears, the jamb splits, and the door blasts inward six inches, crushing the edge of an oak cabinet. It tips, slides, and goes over with a crash that shakes the floor. We force through the gap, wood clawing our shoulders—
—and three shots crack the dark. One-two-three.
My heart stops mid-beat.