Chapter 9 - Shadows in the Nursery
Before Dante could cross the room to seize Victor, Isabella made a frantic, desperate dive toward the fireplace mantel.
Her hand slammed down onto an emergency recessed button hidden beneath the carved stone molding.
Instantly, a piercing, dual-tone alarm began to wail through the estate’s intercom system, rattling the chandelier crystals.
Simultaneously, the main power grid died, plunging the master suite into pitch darkness save for the flickering orange glow of the hearth.
Downstairs, the heavy crash of shattered glass echoed up through the spiral stairwell, followed by the sharp, metallic clicks of automatic weapons being charged.
Victor’s mercenaries had breached the ground floor.
Dante didn't waste a second.
He brought his heavy elbow down onto the base of Dr. Mercer’s skull with surgical precision, instantly knocking the treacherous physician into deep unconsciousness.
He lunged across the dark room, his hand catching Isabella by the throat just as she reached for the double doors.
He shoved her back against the walnut desk with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs.
"Stay where you are, Isabella," Dante growled, his voice vibrating through the gloom.
"If you move one inch from this desk, I will not hesitate to end your bloodline right here."
Isabella fell to her knees, coughing violently, her arrogance entirely shattered by the terrifying reality of Dante’s restored power.
Dante turned toward Victor, who was desperately trying to pull the ceramic blade out of his wrist with his left hand.
With one swift, brutal kick, Dante struck Victor’s jaw, knocking the older man limp against the wall, leaving him pinned by the blade and groaning in a haze of blood and shock.
Dante picked up Victor’s fallen snub-nosed revolver from the floor, checked the cylinder—six rounds of hollow-point .38 specials—and stepped out onto the second-floor gallery.
Through the open balustrade, he looked down into the dark, shadowed expanse of the grand foyer.
Red tactical laser beams sliced through the darkness like glowing spider threads.
Four mercenaries dressed in black combat gear and night-vision optics were moving in tight formation across the marble floor.
Their team leader was speaking into his shoulder radio, his voice clipped and professional.
"Command, this is Team Alpha," the leader whispered.
"Interior lights are down."
"We have visual on the lower service corridor."
"We are moving to secure the domestic staff in the linen closet as primary leverage before moving up to the master suite."
A cold, murderous fury erupted in Dante’s chest.
Anna and Sophie.
Even though he had instructed Anna to take the secret passage to the wine cellar, he knew the panic of the alarm might have trapped them before they reached the heavy iron door.
Dante didn't use the stairs.
He stepped over the polished oak railing of the gallery, dropped twelve feet down onto the heavy velvet drapes that framed the grand window, and slid silently to the marble floor behind the mercenaries’ rear guard.
The mercenary at the back of the stack never heard him coming.
Dante grabbed the man’s tactical helmet from behind, twisted violently to the left with a sharp, sickening snap, and stripped the suppressed submachine gun from the soldier’s chest harness before the body hit the rug.
The other three mercenaries spun around at the sound of the falling gear.
Dante was already moving.
He fired two controlled bursts from the suppressed weapon.
The middle two operators collapsed instantly, their tactical vests pierced before they could acquire a target in the darkness.
The team leader dropped to one knee, bringing his rifle up to fire, but Dante closed the distance in a single, devastating stride.
Dante’s boot caught the barrel of the rifle, kicking it violently into the leader’s jaw.
The mercenary staggered backward against the marble fountain, spitting blood and teeth.
Before the man could draw his sidearm, Dante pressed the smoking barrel of the submachine gun directly between the two lenses of the operator’s night-vision goggles.
"Where is your perimeter commander?" Dante demanded, his voice chillingly devoid of emotion.
The mercenary gasped for air, his hands rising in surrender.
"In the communications van... parked by the south tennis court," the soldier stammered, terrified by the sheer ferocity of the man who was supposed to be a brain-damaged invalid.
"How many men did Victor hire?"
"Thirty-two," the man choked out.
"Twenty-four are patrolling the outer perimeter fences."
"Eight entered the house."
"Four are dead right here," Dante noted with cold finality.
"Where are the other four?"
"They went to the service quarters," the mercenary confessed.
"To find the maid and the little girl."
Without another word, Dante pulled the trigger, dropping the team leader into the fountain basin.
Dante turned on his heel and sprinted through the service doors toward the kitchen corridors, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The service hallway was filled with the acrid smell of burnt wiring and emergency battery smoke.
As he reached the entrance to the wine cellar, he saw the heavy oak door hanging open, its brass lock shattered by a high-caliber breaching shotgun.
Inside the dim brick stairwell, he heard a woman screaming in defiance.
"Get your hands off my daughter!" Anna’s voice echoed off the damp masonry, raw with primal maternal rage.
Dante descended the stairs three at a time, making no sound as his combat boots gripped the stone treads.
At the bottom of the cellar, illuminated by the tactical weapon-lights of two mercenaries, Anna was backed against the 1960 Barolo wine racks.
Her blouse was torn, her lip was bleeding, but she held a jagged, broken wine bottle out like a gladiatorial sword, shielding Sophie behind her back.
Sophie was clutching her mother’s skirt, crying silently, her small hands shaking.
One of the mercenaries, a scarred operative with an assault rifle slung across his chest, was laughing as he reached out with a heavy leather glove to grab Anna’s arm.
"Drop the bottle, sweetheart," the mercenary sneered.
"Mr. Hale wants you alive, but he didn't say anything about keeping all your fingers."
Dante stepped into the threshold of the cellar.
"She told you to get your hands off her daughter," Dante said softly.
Both mercenaries whipped around toward the stairwell, but Dante’s submachine gun barked twice in rapid succession.
The scarred operator took two rounds to the chest plate, the kinetic impact throwing him backward into a wooden wine crate, shattering fifty-year-old vintage bottles into a flood of dark red liquid that smelled of sweet oak and iron.
The second mercenary raised his sidearm, but Dante closed the distance with terrifying velocity, driving his ceramic blade straight through the man’s forearm, pinning the weapon downward, before smashing his forehead directly into the bridge of the soldier’s nose.
The soldier collapsed onto the damp stone floor, completely neutralized.
Anna dropped the shattered wine bottle, her knees buckling as she slid down the brick wall, weeping hysterically as she pulled Sophie into her arms.
Sophie looked past her mother’s trembling shoulder, seeing Dante standing amidst the wreckage, his black clothes smeared with rain and combat soot.
"Mr. Dante," Sophie whispered, wiping her tears with her small sleeve.
"The bad men broke Mommy’s door."
Dante knelt down in the puddle of spilled wine, lowering his weapon to the ground.
He reached out, his hand surprisingly gentle as he brushed the hair from the child’s tear-stained cheek.
"They will never touch your mother again, Sophie," Dante said, his voice steady, grounding, and absolute in its promise.
"I give you my word as Don of this city."
He looked at Anna, extending his hand to help her to her feet.
"Can you walk, Anna?"
Anna took his hand, her trembling body finding sudden strength in his iron grip.
"I can walk," she whispered, drying her eyes and lifting Sophie onto her hip.
"What happens now, Mr. Moretti?"
"Now," Dante replied, turning his eyes toward the cellar stairs with a look of terrifying, absolute clarity.
May you like
"We go back to the grand ballroom."
"And we bring this three-year nightmare to an end."
