Chapter 4 - THE MIDNIGHT AMBUSHThe grandfather clock in the lower hall chimed three times.
The storm had settled into a thick, suffocating fog that rolled off Lake Michigan, swallowing the towering hemlocks and turning the estate’s security floodlights into fuzzy, yellow halos.
I lay awake in the second-floor guest suite—a room four doors down from Luca’s master bedroom, where he had carried me after the house doctor had finished setting my torn ligaments in an inflatable cast. The pain was manageable now, dulled by the prescription analgesics Dr. Aris had left on the nightstand, but sleep was an impossible luxury.
My mind was spinning like an overwound watch.
In less than twelve hours, I had gone from being an invisible maid walking a dog in the rain to the catalyst that had shattered the most powerful mafia alliance in the Midwest.
Beside the bed, resting on the thick carpet, Bruno lifted his massive head.
His cropped ears swiveled toward the window overlooking the south gardens. He didn't bark, but the fur along his spine rose into a rigid ridge, his black lips pulling tight against his gums.
“Bruno?” I whispered, propping myself up on my elbows, the silk sheets sliding down my chest. “What is it, boy?”
A soft, sharp thump sounded from the balcony below.
It wasn't the wind. It was the distinct sound of rubber-soled combat boots landing on wet cedar decking.
My heart seized in my throat.
Before I could reach for the bedside call button that connected to the security station, the lights in the suite died. The soft hum of the HVAC unit cut out, plunging the room into pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by the faint silver mist filtering through the balcony French doors.
The auxiliary power should have kicked on within four seconds. It didn't.
Someone had cut the perimeter breakers.
Bruno scrambled to his feet, a low, murderous growl rattling in his chest. He moved to the foot of the bed, his head lowered, his muscles coiled like steel springs.
The French doors didn't swing open; the glass was shattered with surgical efficiency. A gloved hand reached through the splintered pane, unlocked the brass latch, and pushed the door inward.
A tall figure stepped into the room, clad in dark tactical gear, the silhouette of a suppressed submachine gun held at low-ready.
“Don't move, girl,” a harsh, gravelly voice hissed in the dark.
Dominic Vitucci.
I recognized the voice from the phone call. Salvatore Rossi’s enforcer. The man who had been leaking the rail manifests.
“Isabella told us where he put you,” Dominic whispered, his boots crunching over the broken glass as he stepped toward the bed. “She said Luca burned our family over a kitchen mouse. If we take you, the boss gets his leverage back. Luca won't let the state’s attorney open those manifests if your pretty neck is on the chopping block.”
Bruno didn't wait for him to take another step.
With an explosive, terrifying roar, all one hundred and thirty pounds of Cane Corso launched across the room.
Dominic cursed, bringing the weapon up, but Bruno hit him like a freight train, his jaws clamping onto the operative’s left forearm with bone-shattering force. The submachine gun clattered to the hardwood floor, firing two muffled, suppressed rounds into the plaster ceiling.
“Get off me, you damn beast!” Dominic screamed, slamming his back against the wall, trying frantically to draw a combat knife from his tactical vest with his free hand.
I threw the blankets aside, completely ignoring the blinding, nauseating pain that exploded in my left ankle as my cast hit the floor. I grabbed the heavy brass lamp from the nightstand, ripping the cord from the wall socket, and dragged myself across the rug.
Dominic managed to work the blade free, raising it toward Bruno’s throat.
I lunged forward, swinging the solid brass base of the lamp with everything I had left.
The metal struck Dominic squarely across the temple with a sickening, hollow crack.
The enforcer’s eyes rolled back into his head, his legs buckling, and he collapsed onto the broken glass like a sack of wet flour. Bruno did not let go of his arm; he stood over the unconscious man, his jaws locked, his yellow eyes blazing in the dark, waiting for the slightest twitch of life.
The bedroom door was kicked inward with such violence that the frame splintered.
Luca Moretti stood in the opening, a custom black semi-automatic pistol in his right hand, his white dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his eyes wide with a frantic, feral terror I had never imagined him capable of showing. Behind him, Marco and two security guards swarmed the corridor with tactical flashlights.
The bright beams cut through the gloom, illuminating the shattered glass, the unconscious enforcer, the blood on the carpet, and me—huddled on the floor in an oversized nightshirt, clutching a dented brass lamp, shivering violently as the shock finally took hold.
Luca’s gun dropped to his side.
He didn't look at Dominic. He didn't look at the broken window.
He crossed the room in two strides, dropping to his knees beside me, his large, warm hands pulling my face away from the blood on the floor. His fingers were shaking as they tangled in my messy hair, cupping the back of my neck, drawing me against his chest with an intensity that took my breath away.
“Emma,” he breathed, his voice ragged, hoarse, and raw. “Emma, look at me. Are you hit? Did he shoot you?”
“No,” I choked out, the adrenaline draining from my limbs, leaving me as weak as a newborn kitten. Tears finally spilled over my cheeks, soaking into his warm shirt. “I hit him with the lamp... Bruno got his arm... Luca, he said Isabella sent them—”
“I know,” Luca whispered against my hair, his arms locking around my waist, lifting me off the cold floor and holding me as if I were the only fragile thing in a violent, burning world. “I know, sweetheart. It’s over. I have you.”
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He looked up at Marco, his pale eyes transforming into two burning pits of sulfur.
“Clear the grounds,” Luca commanded, his voice dead and terrifyingly quiet. “Call the council. Tell every family in the Chicago Outfit that Salvatore Rossi has broken the sacred peace. By dawn, the Rossi family will no longer exist in this city.”
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