Chapter 8 - The Shadow of the Bellinis
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The red emergency light bathed the hallway in a sinister crimson glow.
Below us, the distinct pop of suppressed gunfire broke the midnight quiet of the estate.
Salvatore Bellini had not gone home to sleep; he had gathered his strike team the moment he was cast out.
Teresa sat up in bed, terror widening her frail eyes.
“Luca!”
“Stay down, Mom,” Luca ordered, unholstering a sleek black semi-automatic pistol with practiced precision.
He turned toward me, his eyes blazing with an urgent, protective fury.
“Hannah, take my mother into the panic room behind the wardrobe.”
“There is an internal locking mechanism on the left wall.”
“Do not open that door for anyone except me or Dante.”
“What about Sophie?” I asked, panic gripping my chest as I remembered the little girl sleeping on the third floor.
Luca’s expression turned utterly lethal.
“I am getting my daughter.”
Before I could say another word, Luca vanished down the dark hallway, moving with the terrifying silence of a predator.
I didn’t waste a single second.
I helped Teresa out of bed, supporting her full weight as we shuffled toward the antique walnut wardrobe in the corner.
I pushed aside the heavy winter coats, revealing the reinforced steel keypad hidden in the cedar paneling.
Just as I punched in the five-digit code Luca had given the staff for emergencies, heavy footsteps thudded on the stairs.
Two men dressed in tactical black gear rounded the corridor, their weapons raised.
“She’s in here!” one of them shouted in a thick Brooklyn accent.
Teresa gasped, her fingers digging into my arm.
I shoved the old woman inside the steel reinforced opening.
“Stay inside, Mrs. Moretti! Pull the lever!”
“Hannah, no!” Teresa cried out, reaching for me.
I slammed the steel door shut and locked it from the outside just as the first gunman reached the bedroom threshold.
A heavy boot struck my shoulder, sending me crashing against the bedside table.
Pain shot through my collarbone, but I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the heavy brass table lamp by its cord.
“Where is the old woman?” the gunman demanded, aiming his rifle straight at my chest.
“She’s gone,” I panted, holding the lamp like a club.
“You’re too late.”
The man sneered, taking a step closer to strike me with the butt of his weapon.
“Stupid little maid.”
Before he could swing, a shadow detached itself from the ceiling rafters above the balcony door.
A deafening crack echoed through the room.
The gunman’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed forward onto the carpet like a sack of stones.
The second man turned to fire, but Luca was already upon him.
Luca caught the man’s rifle barrel, redirecting the shot into the ceiling plaster, and drove his elbow into the attacker's throat.
The fight lasted less than three seconds.
Both men lay motionless on the floor.
Luca stood amidst the gunsmoke, breathing evenly, holding a nine-year-old girl in his left arm.
Sophie clung to her father’s neck, her face buried in his shoulder, her small hands clutching a stuffed white rabbit.
Luca looked at me, taking in my bruised shoulder and the brass lamp still raised in my shaking hands.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked, his voice trembling with an emotion far deeper than anger.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, lowering the lamp.
“Your mother is safe inside the vault.”
Sophie peeked her head out from Luca’s shoulder, her big brown eyes looking at me with pure admiration.
“Hannah,” the little girl whispered, “you fought the bad guys?”
I managed a faint, trembling smile despite the throbbing pain in my shoulder.
“Just trying to keep your grandma’s house safe, Sophie.”
Luca stepped over the fallen intruders and stood directly in front of me.
With his free hand, he gently pulled me against his chest, wrapping his strong arm around both me and his daughter.
“You are the bravest woman I have ever known,” he murmured against my hair.
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The front gates roared open in the distance as three black SUVs tore up the estate's winding gravel driveway.
Reinforcements had arrived, but we did not yet know whose side they were on.
