Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Sanctuary
Luca’s reaction was instantaneous.
In a single movement, he crossed the room, grabbed Emma by the arm, and pulled her off the chair toward the interior wall, well away from the windows. At the same second, the glass shattered inward in a shower of glittering shards as three high-caliber rounds punched through the heavy drapery, splintering the mahogany desk where Emma had been sitting seconds before.
"Stay down!" Luca barked, pressing her against the baseboard with his own body shield.
Alarms blared across the estate, high-pitched and deafening. Gunfire erupted from the gardens below—the heavy, rhythmic thud of Luca’s men returning fire with semi-automatic rifles.
"Marco!" Luca yelled into the comms unit clipped to his collar.
"They breached the southern gatehouse, Boss!" Marco’s voice crackled through static and gunfire. "Six vehicles! They cut the main power lines—we're running on the emergency generator!"
"Get the secondary squad to the east wing," Luca commanded. "They aren't here for the docks. They’re here to burn the house down."
Luca looked down at Emma. Her face was chalk-white in the dim emergency lighting, but her eyes were razor-focused. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't hysterical. She was looking at the shattered glass on the floor, calculating the angle of the shots.
"The shooter is on the water tower by the boathouse," she said, her voice shaking but clear. "My father used to keep a maintenance platform up there. It has an unobstructed view of the second-floor bedrooms."
Luca stared at her, impressed despite the chaos. "Can you shoot?"
"My father taught me before he was murdered," she replied.
Luca reached into his shoulder holster, pulled out a snub-nosed backup revolver, and pressed it into her palm. "Five shots. Don't use it unless someone comes through that door wearing black without a Moretti crest on their vest."
"Understood."
Luca checked his P226, thumbed the safety off, and cracked the bedroom door.
The hallway was filled with the acrid smell of cordite. Two of his personal guards were already positioned at the top of the marble staircase, firing downward into the grand foyer where muzzle flashes illuminated the dark portraits of Luca’s ancestors.
"Hold the landing!" Luca shouted, advancing down the hall with military precision. He leaned around the corner of the balcony and fired four controlled rounds into a figure attempting to ascend the stairs with an assault rifle. The man collapsed backward, crashing into the shattered remnants of a crystal vase.
Downstairs, the front oak doors had been blasted off their hinges with tactical breaching charges. Through the smoke, five heavily armed mercenaries moved with professional discipline—not common street soldiers, but paid contractors. Vincente had spent serious money to finish this cleanly.
"Emma!" Luca called back over the din. "To the safe room! Behind my office!"
She appeared at his side, low to the ground, moving with an agility that defied her battered frame. "They brought incendiaries," she yelled, pointing toward the lower gallery where a flare of bright white phosphorus had just ignited the library shelves. "They don't want to clear the house. They want to cremate it!"
Luca cursed. A fire in a historic stone-and-timber manor was a death trap within minutes.
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"The underground tunnel to the carriage house," Luca said, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the hidden service staircase behind the pantry. "Move!"
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