Chapter 6 - The Viper's Last Strike
For two weeks, the city of Chicago experienced an eerie, unnatural peace.
The Bellini family had officially evacuated their Oak Brook compound, retreating to an offshore estate in the Bahamas under the watchful surveillance of Damian’s intelligence units.
Elena had moved into the master suite of the Moretti mansion.
She spent her days working with corporate attorneys and union leaders, reforming the dockworker wages and establishing a private philanthropic foundation in her mother’s name to fund cancer treatments for uninsured families across Cook County.
She was thriving. Her hair had grown into a chic, sleek bob that had already been featured on the society pages of the Chicago Tribune, her natural grace and sharp intellect winning over the city’s business elite.
Yet Damian remained on high alert.
The security perimeter around the estate had been doubled. Armed guards patrolled the grounds with Belgian Malinois attack dogs, and Elena was never permitted to leave the compound without a three-car armored escort.
“Vincent Bellini is an old snake, Elena,” Damian warned her one evening over dinner in the conservatory. “Snakes do not crawl away to die peacefully in the sun. They wait in the grass until you lower your guard.”
The strike came on a Thursday night.
A violent thunderstorm—the fiercest of the season—battered the North Shore. Thunder shook the heavy foundation of the stone manor, and rain lashed against the conservatory glass in blinding, deafening sheets.
At 2:15 a.m., the estate plunged into total, suffocating darkness.
The backup generators did not kick on.
Elena sat bolt upright in the massive king-sized bed, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The other side of the mattress was cold. Damian had been in the subterranean war room since midnight reviewing security breaches at the rail yards.
Click.
The unmistakable sound of a heavy door hinge groaning echoed down the dark hallway outside the master suite.
Elena didn't scream. Two years of surviving on her own, combined with two weeks of living beside Damian Moretti, had burned the instinct to panic out of her blood.
She slipped silently out of bed, her bare feet making no sound on the hardwood floor.
She didn't reach for a light switch. She moved toward the nightstand, opened the felt-lined drawer, and gripped the cold, checkered steel grip of the Walther PPK Damian had trained her to fire.
A sudden, sharp thud sounded outside the bedroom doors.
A muffled groan. The heavy sound of a body collapsing to the carpet.
Marco.
Before Elena could chamber a round, the heavy double doors were kicked off their latch.
Two men in black tactical gear and balaclavas burst through the doorway, suppressed submachine guns raised, their tactical weapon lights blinding her in twin beams of harsh white.
“Drop the piece, little girl!” a harsh, accented voice barked.
Elena didn't drop it.
She brought the weapon up in a two-handed grip, aiming center mass, and squeezed the trigger.
CRACK!
The shot roared in the enclosed bedroom.
The lead intruder screamed, clutching his shattered shoulder as the 9mm hollow-point punched through his tactical vest. He staggered backward, knocking his partner into the doorframe.
Elena lunged toward the adjoining bathroom, seeking cover behind the reinforced marble doorframe.
The second shooter opened fire.
A deafening volley of automatic fire chewed through the mahogany furniture, tearing the mattress to shreds and shattering the mirrors in an explosion of crystalline dust.
Elena pulled the trigger again—click.
The slide locked back. Empty.
A cold hand clamped around her throat from behind.
Elena was yanked backward out of the bathroom, thrown violently onto the floor beside the ruined bed.
Standing over her was not a mercenary.
It was Isabelle Bellini.
Isabelle had discarded her designer silk. She wore black leather trousers and a rain-soaked tactical jacket, her face wild, her blonde hair plastered to her skull by the storm, her blue eyes blazing with feral, unhinged madness.
In her gloved right hand, she held a gleaming, serrated hunting knife.
“Did you really think it was over, you little whore?” Isabelle hissed, dropping her knee heavily onto Elena’s chest, pinning her to the floor. “Did you think you could steal my ring, my wedding, and my father’s empire and just live happily ever after?!”
Elena struggled, clawing at Isabelle’s wrist, but Isabelle’s weight and manic adrenaline held her down.
Isabelle brought the tip of the hunting knife to Elena’s cheek, pressing down until a thin bead of scarlet welled against the pale skin.
“Damian is trapped in the basement,” Isabelle laughed—a high, psychotic shriek that rose above the thunder. “My father hired thirty former Spetsnaz mercenaries from Detroit. They flooded the lower levels with thermite charges. Damian is burning alive right now, Elena!”
Elena’s blood ran cold, but she refused to give Isabelle the satisfaction of tears.
“If Damian were dead, Isabelle,” Elena choked out, staring into the madwoman’s eyes, “you wouldn't be here trying to cut my face. You’d be running for the border.”
Isabelle’s face twisted into an ugly, murderous snarl.
May you like
“I am going to carve your eyes out first,” Isabelle shrieked, raising the heavy hunting knife with both hands. “Then I will leave your carcass for the rats!”
She drove the blade downward.
