Chapter 4 - THE BLUEPRINT OF A TRAP“Marcus thinks you’re half-dead, right?” I said, stepping toward the center of the room. “He thinks you’re bedridden, bleeding out, and completely incapable of organizing a defense.”
“He knows I was shot,” Dominic nodded slowly, following my logic. “He assumes I’m recovering.”
“Good. Let him assume,” I said, pointing a finger at the large digital security monitor mounted near the bedroom wall, which displayed live feeds of the estate’s perimeter cameras. “If you meet them at the gates with four guards, they’ll overwhelm you with sheer numbers. But if you let them think they’re walking into an abandoned fortress—”
“A Trojan horse,” Leo murmured, a dangerous, appreciating smile spreading across his face.
“Exactly,” I continued, feeling the adrenaline spike in my veins. “You stay in this room. You look as pale and wrecked as you did yesterday morning. Pile extra blood packs on the sheets. Make it look like I failed, and you’re slipping into a coma.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “And what are you and Leo doing while I play corpse?”
“We lock down the inner mansion, disable the exterior security lights to make them think the power grid failed, and funnel them into the grand foyer one by one,” Leo took over, his eyes lighting up with tactical brilliance. “Once they’re inside the kill zone, we close the steel shutters.”
“And I’ll handle the medical bay,” I added. “If any of your men get clipped, I’ll patch them up right here. But more importantly… I know how to set a diversion.”
Dominic stared at me for a long, silent moment. The cold, untouchable mafia boss seemed to be seeing me for the first time—not as a desperate nurse with rent problems, but as an equal in a life-or-death survival game.
“You’re insane, Nora Hayes,” Dominic said quietly, a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. “You should be running a black-ops unit, not working in an emergency room.”
“Emergency rooms prepare you for anything, Mr. Rossi,” I replied smoothly. “Including arrogant men who think they can bleed to death in peace.”
By 6:00 PM, the sun dipped below the jagged mountain peaks, plunging the Rossi estate into total darkness.
The exterior security lights flickered once and died. The massive iron gates at the bottom of the winding driveway stood wide open, left unlocked by design.
Inside the master suite, the room was bathed in the eerie red glow of emergency backup lights. Dominic was stretched across the bed, shirtless, wearing fake theatrical stage blood smeared across his chest and bandages to simulate a catastrophic hemorrhage.
I stood beside the bed, holding a medical tray filled with scalpels, gauze, and a syringe filled with a mild sedative.
“If Marcus comes into this room, you have to sell the performance,” I whispered, leaning over him to adjust his monitor settings.
“Don't worry, Nora,” Dominic murmured, his voice barely audible, his eyes half-closed. “I’ve played dead before. It’s an occupational hazard.”
A muffled crash echoed from the lower foyer.
May you like
They had breached the front doors.
The trap was sprung.
