Chapter 8 - The Shadow on the Bluffs
Back in the master suite of the Lake Forest estate, the silence was suddenly shattered by a violent, concussive surge.
At exactly 11:58 p.m., every light in the French Normandy chateau died at once.
The cheerful hum of the radiant floor heating vanished. The warm glow of the chandeliers was extinguished, plunging the massive room into absolute, pitch-black darkness. A second later, the low-frequency emergency batteries kicked in, casting an eerie, pale amber glow along the floorboards from the safety strips mounted near the baseboards.
Then, from the terrace outside, came the sound of three muffled thwacks—the unmistakable sound of suppressed rifles discharging.
My heart vaulted into my throat.
I sprang from the leather chair, dropping the cashmere blanket, my hand flying to my rounded stomach as our daughter gave a frantic, startled kick against my ribs.
"Rosa!" I called out into the darkened hallway.
There was no answer. Only the heavy, rhythmic drumming of rain against the steel-shuttered windows, and the faint, chilling sound of footsteps moving across the bluestone terrace directly beneath the master bedroom balcony.
The door to the master suite swung open.
It wasn't Dante.
Standing in the doorway was a man wearing a black tactical jacket, a balaclava covering the lower half of his face, holding a suppressed submachine gun. His eyes were wide, dilated with adrenaline, and he had a radio strapped to his shoulder that was crackling with low static.
"Found her," the man said into the radio, his voice carrying the rough, nasal accent of South Chicago. "Second-floor east wing. She’s alone."
Time stopped.
The terror that had paralyzed me at the Bellamy Theater did not come. Instead, something primal, ancient, and unyielding took over—the instinct of a mother whose child was in direct, mortal danger.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg.
I reached behind me on the desk, my fingers closing around the heavy, cut-crystal decanter that Vincent had left beside the blueprints.
The gunman took one step toward me, raising his weapon to point it at my chest. "Don't move, sweetheart. Carmine wants you breathing, but he didn't say nothing about—"
I lunged forward with all the strength in my body, swinging the heavy crystal decanter in a vicious, horizontal arc.
The thick glass shattered directly against the side of his temple.
The impact was sickening—a sharp, wet crunch of bone and bursting crystal. The man let out a strangled grunt, his legs folding beneath him like wet cardboard, his submachine gun clattering across the hardwood floor as he collapsed face-down onto the Persian rug.
I scrambled backward, breathing heavily, glass shards crunching beneath my bare feet.
Before I could reach for his fallen weapon, a second figure stepped through the shattered doorway.
It was Michael Russo.
He was bleeding from a cut above his brow, his tuxedo shirt torn and filthy, his silver tie gone. In his right hand, he held a chrome-plated revolver, his knuckles white against the grip.
"Michael," I whispered, backing toward the high windows until my shoulders hit the cold steel shutters.
Michael stared at me, his chest heaving, his eyes wild and unhinged. He looked at the unconscious gunman on the floor, then up at my face, his gaze dropping to the platinum wedding band gleaming on my left hand.
"He gave you the ring," Michael muttered, his voice cracking into a high, hysterical laugh. "He actually gave you the ring. Thirty years I gave him, Grace! Thirty years I took the heat, cleaned up the bodies, and managed the accounts! And he throws me in a cellar for a girl with a belly!"
"You brought Carmine here, Michael," I said, forcing my voice to remain low, steady, trying to buy time as I felt along the window frame behind me for the emergency manual release lever that Vincent had shown me earlier. "He’s going to kill you the second this is over. You know that. Men like Carmine don't keep traitors on payroll."
"Carmine is dead!" Michael screamed, his voice bouncing off the high ceiling. "Vincent put three rounds through his chest at the 31st Street depot twenty minutes ago! The whole syndicate is falling apart! The feds are raiding the docks right now! There’s nothing left, Grace! Nothing!"
He raised the chrome revolver, pointing it directly at my stomach.
"If I can't have the empire," Michael wept, tears cutting clean paths through the soot on his cheeks, "then Vincent Moretti leaves this earth with empty hands."
My fingers found the cold steel lever behind the drape.
"Michael," I said, looking him dead in the eye, channeling every ounce of courage I possessed. "You're right about one thing. Vincent is coming."
I pulled the lever downward with all my weight.
The heavy, counterweighted steel shutters did not slowly rise—the emergency release blew the hydraulic pins with a concussive bang, dropping the two-ton steel plates three inches onto the stone sill with a sound like a guillotine falling.
The sudden, deafening mechanical shock distracted Michael for half a second.
His eyes darted toward the window.
In that single fraction of a heartbeat, the balcony French doors behind him exploded inward in a shower of tempered glass and shredded curtains.
A shadow tore through the opening like an avenging demon from the depths of hell.
It was Vincent.
He didn't use a gun. He moved with pure, catastrophic violence. He caught Michael by the right shoulder and the back of the neck, slamming him forward across the room with the force of a freight train.
They crashed into the heavy mahogany desk, splintering the antique wood into jagged pieces. Michael screamed as the chrome revolver flew from his hand, spinning across the floor.
Vincent pinned him to the floorboards, his knee buried in Michael’s sternum, his left hand pinning Michael’s throat while his right hand drew an eight-inch combat blade from his tactical vest.
"Vincent!" Michael choked out, blood bubbling from his lips. "Vincent... please... we were boys... on 26th Street..."
Vincent leaned down until his nose was an inch from Michael’s face. His eyes were not human; they were black voids of absolute, unsparing retribution.
"My daughter was in this room, Michael," Vincent whispered.
He didn't wait for another word.
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With one swift, brutal stroke, Vincent severed the carotid artery.
Michael’s body convulsed once, twice, and then went completely still, his life spilling out in a dark, silent tide across the broken floorboards of the master suite.
