Chapter 7 - The Devil's InterventionThe interior of my home—my sanctuary of cream linens, oak floors, and framed finger-paintings—had been violated. The heavy mahogany front door hung splintered on its hinges. Muddy combat boot prints stained the pristine foyer rug.
I moved with the silent, lethal grace I had learned during my years surviving the Romano syndicate’s underground wars. I cleared the living room. Empty. I cleared the kitchen. A shattered coffee mug lay on the tile. Maria’s phone was abandoned on the counter, the screen cracked.
"Leo!" I screamed, unable to contain the agonizing panic tearing my chest apart. "Leo!"
A muffled thud echoed from the second floor. The nursery.
I took the stairs two at a time, my gun raised, my heart hammering so violently I could hear it in my ears. I kicked the nursery door open, sweeping the room with the barrel of my weapon.
Maria was tied to the radiator, a gag in her mouth, sobbing hysterically with a bruise blooming across her cheek.
Standing in the center of the room, holding my terrified, crying five-year-old son by the arm, was a massive Moretti enforcer. He had a suppressed submachine gun slung over his shoulder and a cruel, jagged scar running down his neck.
"Mommy!" Leo screamed, trying to pull away from the giant's grip.
"Let him go," I commanded, aiming the Glock squarely between the enforcer's eyes. My hands were perfectly steady. The mother was terrified, but the shooter was absolute. "I will blow your head off. Let him go."
The enforcer smirked, pulling Leo flush against his heavy tactical vest, using my son as a human shield. "Salvatore said you were fierce. But you aren't going to risk hitting the kid. Drop the gun, bitch. We’re taking a helicopter ride to meet your old boyfriend."
"I said, drop him," I snarled, stepping into the room.
Before the enforcer could open his mouth to reply, the floor-to-ceiling window of the nursery violently shattered inward in an explosion of tempered glass and blinding rain.
A shadow moved through the broken window with terrifying, supernatural speed. It wasn't a man; it was a force of nature.
Two suppressed gunshots cut through the air—pfft, pfft.
The Moretti enforcer’s eyes went wide. A perfect, symmetrical pair of bullet holes appeared in his forehead. He crumpled to the floor instantly, releasing Leo.
I dove forward, catching my son before he hit the ground, wrapping my body around his, shielding him from the glass and the blood. I pulled Leo into my chest, burying my face in his hair, breathing in the scent of him, letting out a fractured sob of pure relief.
"I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you," I cried, rocking him.
I looked up through the darkness and the rain pouring into the shattered room.
Standing over the dead enforcer, lowering a smoking, custom-built Kimber 1911, was Dante Romano.
Five years had not softened him. If anything, they had carved him out of harder, colder stone. He wore a tailored black overcoat soaking wet from the storm, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. His jaw was locked in a rigid line of absolute, uncompromising violence, but his pitch-black eyes were fixed entirely on me and the boy in my arms.
He didn't look at the body. He looked at us like a starving man staring at a feast he was forbidden to touch.
"You're late," I breathed, my voice shaking with a mixture of profound relief and explosive, long-buried anger.
Dante slowly holstered his weapon. He stepped forward, the glass crunching beneath his polished Oxford shoes. He dropped to one knee in front of us. He reached out, his large, blood-stained hand hovering inches from Leo’s face, before gently, reverently tucking a stray curl behind my son's ear.
Leo stopped crying. He looked at the terrifying, towering mafia boss with wide, innocent eyes. He didn't know this man was the most dangerous predator on the East Coast. He didn't know this man was his father.
"I am never late," Dante murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that sent a violent shiver down my spine. The sound of it unlocked a thousand memories I had desperately tried to bury. "I told you, Elena. Even in the dark, even when you hate me, I will always watch over what is mine."
"He is not yours," I hissed, pulling Leo tighter against my chest, glaring at him. "We left your world. You were supposed to stay away."
"The world came to you, Elena," Dante replied, standing back up to his full, intimidating height. He looked out the shattered window into the storm. "Salvatore Moretti just broke the treaty. He tried to take my blood."
"Because of you!" I shouted, standing up and pulling Leo behind my legs. "They targeted us to get to you!"
"And they will die for it," Dante stated coldly. He pulled a sleek encrypted radio from his coat. "Matteo. The package is secure. Burn the vehicles outside and prep the extraction chopper. We are leaving."
"I am not going anywhere with you, Dante," I said, raising my gun again, this time pointing it at him. "We are leaving. We are disappearing again."
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Dante didn't even flinch at the weapon aimed at his chest. He looked at me with a dark, consuming possessiveness that took my breath away.
"You can't run from this, Elena. They know who he is. They know who you are," Dante said, stepping forward until the barrel of my gun pressed against his heart. "You pull that trigger, or you get on the helicopter. But you are not walking out of this room alone. You belong in my fortress. And I am taking you home."
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