Chapter 5 - The Watcher in the Garden
The silence in the armored limousine on the ride back to Lake Forest was suffocating.
Luca sat across from me, his jaw set, staring out the tinted window as the rain began to fall again in heavy, sluggish drops. His phone on the leather console buzzed continuously, lighting up the dim interior every ten seconds with names I didn't recognize: *Vance*, *Caputo*, *Senator Walsh*.
He didn't answer a single call.
“You broke an empire for a bruise,” I whispered suddenly. The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them.
Luca turned his head toward me. The amber streetlights flashed across his sharp features as we passed through an intersection.
“I didn't break an empire, Emma,” he said quietly. “The Romanos have been siphoning money from our joint shipping line for eighteen months. Antonio’s brother is already cutting side deals with the Detroit syndicate. The alliance was a dry branch waiting for a spark.”
“So you used me as the spark.”
A heavy pause settled between us. Luca reached over and tapped the screen of his phone, turning it face down so it stopped glowing.
“I protected what mattered,” he said. “If Isabella had gotten away with hurting you, she would have tested Sofia next. A bully doesn't stop when you give them ground; they stop when you break their jaw.”
We reached the iron gates of the Moretti estate.
Usually, the massive gates opened smoothly as the car approached, the sensor recognizing the transponder on the grille. Tonight, the car came to a sudden, jarring halt.
The driver, a thickset man named Franco who had driven Luca for a decade, reached into his jacket. “Boss.”
Luca was instantly alert. The casual posture vanished. His eyes scanned the darkness beyond the rain-slicked windshield.
“What is it?” Luca asked.
“Front gate intercom is down. And the perimeter lights on the west lawn are off.”
My stomach dropped through the floorboards. The memory of Isabella’s feral, vengeful eyes flashed in my mind.
Luca pulled a sleek black semiautomatic pistol from an underarm holster, racking the slide with a crisp, metallic *clack*. The sound sent a bolt of pure adrenaline straight into my bloodstream.
“Stay down, Emma,” he commanded. “Keep your head below the window line.”
“Sofia is inside,” I gasped, terror seizing my throat. “Mrs. Gable is sixty years old! She can’t protect her!”
“Marco is inside with two men,” Luca said, his voice deadly calm despite the storm gathering around us. “Franco, ram the gate.”
“Sir?”
“Ram it.”
Franco slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The heavy armored Suburban surged forward with a deafening roar.
The heavy steel bumper collided with the wrought-iron gates in an explosion of screeching metal and splintering hinges. The gates gave way, crashing into the wet gravel as the vehicle plowed up the winding, tree-lined driveway.
The estate came into view.
The three-story stone mansion, normally illuminated by warm floodlights and landscape lanterns, was completely pitch black.
Every light was out.
The car screeched to a halt on the circular drive in front of the main portico. Luca didn't wait for Franco. He kicked his door open and stepped into the downpour.
“Emma, stay in the vehicle,” he ordered without turning back.
“I can't!” I scrambled out of the car after him, my velvet gown instantly soaking through with icy rainwater. “Sofia is up there! She’s terrified of the dark, Luca! You know she sleeps with two nightlights!”
Luca stopped on the stone steps. For half a second, his eyes blazed with fury at my disobedience. But then he saw the desperate, maternal panic in my face—and something shifted.
He reached out, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me behind him.
“Stay behind my left shoulder,” he ordered, his voice an iron whisper. “If I tell you to run, you don't look back. You take Sofia to the cellar vault behind the wine racks. The code is Sofia’s birthday backwards. Understood?”
“Understood.”
We moved through the shattered front doors. The glass panes on either side of the heavy oak entrance had been smashed inward, jagged shards sparkling on the foyer floor.
The smell hit us first.
Not blood. Tear gas and burnt copper.
Luca stepped over the threshold, his gun raised, sweeping the dark, cavernous foyer. The marble statues looked like menacing shadows waiting to spring.
“Marco?” Luca called out, his voice sharp and low.
From behind the grand staircase, a groan sounded.
Luca moved quickly, keeping his back to the wall, with me clutching the fabric of his soaked tuxedo jacket.
Lying near the entrance to the kitchen was Marco, the head of estate security. His face was bloody, his hands cuffed behind his back with heavy plastic zip-ties, and a deep gash ran across his temple.
Luca knelt beside him, slicing the plastic ties with a pocket knife. “Report.”
Marco coughed, spitting blood onto the marble. “Four men. Professional. North Side accents. They cut the main power grid and hit us with flashbangs from the terrace doors. They weren't looking to kill us, Luca... they were looking for the girl.”
My heart stopped beating. The world turned upside down.
“Sofia?” I screamed, forgetting every rule of silence. “Where is Sofia?”
“They took her up the service stairs,” Marco rasped, clutching his ribs. “They’re trying to exit through the conservatory roof. There’s a chopper waiting two miles north at the private airfield. Romano’s men.”
Luca didn't scream. He didn't curse.
He simply stood up.
In that moment, he ceased to be an investor, a father, or a billionaire. He became a force of nature. The quiet, calculating businessman was gone, replaced by a ruthless predator whose only instinct was total extermination.
He turned toward the service stairs at the end of the hall.
“Luca,” I choked out, grabbing his arm. “Don't let them take her.”
He looked down at my hand gripping his sleeve.
“They won’t make it off the property,” he said.
Then he ran up the stairs.
May you like
I didn't stay behind. I kicked off my high-heeled shoes, leaving them on the bloody marble floor, and sprinted into the darkness after him.
***
