28. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Alina
She stared at the steel shutter, imagining the outside world—the valley, the woods, the perimeter wall, now crawling with coordinated threats. She pictured men in black, radios pressed to their ears, fingers tracing blueprints, mapping out every vulnerability.
“I just want to know if Dante’s okay,” she said, and the words were less a plea than an accusation.
The guard’s comm crackled, static and then a burst of garbled Italian. He keyed the button, muttering a call sign she didn’t recognize, and listened, jaw working side to side. Then he looked back at her, and for the first time, he seemed human.
“He’s with the advance team,” the guard said. “Trying to flank whoever’s out there.”
“Is he safe?” She hated how small her voice sounded.
He didn’t lie, and he didn’t reassure her. Instead he said, “You’ll be safer if you stay here.”
The next impact was so loud it seemed to suck the air from the hall. Alina’s body reacted before her mind did: she ducked, hands over her head, heart slamming against her ribs. The guard dropped to a knee, weapon drawn now, safety off.
“Move,” he said, as if he had suddenly remembered that his job was to shield her from all harm, including her own stubbornness.
She let herself be herded down the corridor, past doors that no longer functioned, past windows that no longer offered a view.
The blue glow of the emergency sconces turned everything surreal—the paintings on the walls lurched out of shadow, cast in a haze that made the ancestral faces look like ghosts.
They reached a heavy double door, dark walnut with elaborate inlays, and the guard shouldered it open to a smaller, windowless side chamber crowded with antique chairs and a mahogany table. The room was airless, artificial, sealed off from the world.
He positioned himself by the only entrance, weapon at the ready, and gestured for her to stay back.
“Will the shutters hold?” she asked, her voice shivering.
He considered it. “If they want to burn through, yes. If they brought breaching hardware…” He trailed off.
“Do I want to know?”
He met her eyes with an expression that was almost pity. “If they get in, you’ll have about thirty seconds. Less if they’re professionals.”
Alina gulped air, forced herself to focus. Dante was out there. That was both the hope and the horror: if he was fighting, if he was exposed, if he was prioritizing the team over his own safety, then this was not just a family feud. This was a war.
She fumbled her phone out of her pocket, hands trembling so badly she nearly dropped it. She tried to dial Dante, but there was no signal.
She texted anyway:
They’re here.
Three dots hovered, then vanished. No reply.
She tried again: Are you safe?
Her message failed to send.
She peered up at the lights—now flickering in a pattern she didn’t recognize, a dimming and swelling that seemed almost like Morse code.
She realized with a cold lurch that this meant the mansion was on generator power.
Either the external lines had been cut, or someone had deliberately triggered isolation mode.
“I need to get you to the panic room,” the guard said, mostly to himself.
He reached for her arm, not rough but insistent. “We’re going.”
“Is it secure?” Alina asked, not moving.
“It’s the safest place in the house,” the guard replied, as if that were a statement of faith.
She held her ground. “If they can cut the power, what’s the point? What if they just starve us out?”
He looked at her—the kind of look that calculated cost-benefit in a fractional second—then said, “We’re not planning on staying long enough for a siege.”
The next sound was different. Not a bang, not a thud, but a long, low scrape, as if some massive thing was being dragged along the length of the house. The guard’s face blanched; he motioned for her to move, now, now, now.
They ran. Down a secondary hallway, past a succession of empty guest suites and unused parlors. The blue sconces threw their shadows ahead of them, like a pair of frantic ghosts.
They stopped at a door flush with the wall—no handle, no keyhole. The guard brushed aside a painting, revealing a black touchpad. He pressed his palm to it, and the panel clicked, then slid aside, revealing a narrow stairwell that descended into darkness.
“In,” he said, and Alina had no better idea, so she went.