Chapter 42
The spacious, sunlit kitchen of the villa was instantly converted into a battlefield triage station. Dante lifted Matteo effortlessly into his arms, carrying his bleeding lieutenant inside and laying him flat across the wide butcher-block island while Maya moved with the fierce, focused efficiency of someone who had long since discarded panic. She had already locked Sophia inside the reinforced library with strict instructions to stay beneath the heavy oak desk, and now she approached the island carrying a stainless-steel basin of steaming water, clean linen towels, and the military-grade trauma kit Dante kept concealed in the pantry. Her breathing was rapid, her heart pounding against her ribs for the safety of her unborn child, but her hands were remarkably steady as she used a pair of heavy kitchen shears to cut away Matteo’s blood-soaked shirt.
The injury was severe: a high-caliber round had torn through the meat of Matteo’s left shoulder, missing the subclavian artery by less than an inch but leaving a jagged, weeping exit wound that had already drained a dangerous amount of blood from his body. Dante pressed a thick wad of sterile gauze against the wound with crushing force, his knuckles white, while Maya swiftly drew an ampoule of coagulant into a syringe. She swabbed the surrounding skin with antiseptic and injected the medication directly into the margin of the tissue, watching with clinical focus as the frantic bleeding slowed to a sluggish ooze. Her time spent working double shifts in New York and caring for Sophia had forged a deep, quiet resilience within her, but seeing the brutal reality of Dante’s old world splashed across their clean kitchen tiles sent a sickening shiver through her veins.
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Matteo groaned, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the edge of the wooden counter, his breath hissing through clenched teeth. "Antoine... he didn't come alone, Boss," Matteo whispered, his head rolling back against the wood as Maya began tightly binding his shoulder with pressure bandages. "He pooled resources with the remaining families in Marseilles and southern France. They know you dismantled the New York syndicate through federal channels, and they know the ports are operating under legitimate corporate oversight. They don't want a sit-down. They don't want a percentage. Antoine told the commission that as long as the ghost of Dante Russo breathes, no European family can expand westward. He bought satellite coordinates from a disgraced former liaison in Rome. They have three tactical teams moving through the province right now."
Dante remained silent as he wiped the blood from his forearms with a damp cloth, but the air around him grew suffocatingly dense, vibrating with a cold, terrifying fury that Maya recognized all too well. For two years, he had honored his promise to never touch a weapon, to leave the executions and the turf wars buried in the concrete of New York. But Antoine had crossed the ocean, had hunted them to the sanctuary they had built with their own sweat, and was now circling the woman carrying his child. Dante stepped around the counter, his pale gray eyes fixing onto Maya. He saw the faint tremor in her jaw, but more than that, he saw the fierce, unyielding love in her dark eyes—a love that had redeemed him from the abyss. "We cannot stay here," Dante said, his voice flat, devoid of fear, carrying only the lethal certainty of an emperor preparing for war. "Antoine knows the terrain of this valley. By nightfall, this estate will be surrounded by forty men with heavy ordnance. We leave for the safehouse in Rome within the hour."
