Chapter 11 - THE ASSAULT ON THE ESTATE
The crystal chandeliers above the dining table trembled slightly as a dull, concussive boom echoed from the front of the estate.
“They blew the main gate,” Marco said, his voice tight. “They’re moving up the driveway. At least forty heavily armed men, sir. Professional mercenaries.”
I stood frozen, the blood roaring in my ears. The man who had terrorized my father twenty years ago, the man whose reputation Dad had destroyed with a single Polaroid photograph, had returned from the grave.
And he wanted his empire back.
“Where is my mother?” Luca demanded, grabbing a heavy silver candelabra from the table—his only immediate weapon.
“Teresa is secure in the panic room,” Marco reported. “She was reading in the library when the first shot was fired. The guards got her inside.”
“My dad,” I gasped, panic seizing my chest. “He went up to the guest suite in the West Wing!”
“The West Wing is closest to the breach,” Marco warned, stepping toward the door. “We need to move, boss. The armory is in the basement.”
“Go,” Luca ordered Marco. “Arm the tactical team and hold the grand staircase. Do not let them reach the second floor. I’m getting Robert.”
Luca dropped the candelabra, grabbed my hand, and we sprinted out of the dining room. The estate was plunging into chaos. The blare of the security alarms wailed relentlessly, casting the hallways in the frantic, flashing red light of the emergency strobes.
We ran up the back servant stairs, avoiding the grand foyer where the fighting would inevitably concentrate. The sound of automatic gunfire erupted outside, shattering the massive stained-glass windows at the front of the house.
“Dad!” I screamed as we burst into the second-floor hallway of the West Wing.
My father’s guest suite was at the far end of the hall. The door was wide open.
We sprinted into the room.
It was empty.
The bed was unmade, his suit jacket thrown over a chair, but my dad was nowhere to be found.
“He wouldn't just run,” I cried frantically, spinning around the empty room. “He wouldn't leave us!”
“He didn't run away,” Luca said, his voice dangerously calm as he pointed to the large, open window at the back of the suite.
The rain from earlier had stopped, but a cold wind blew through the open window, carrying the scent of gunpowder. I ran to the ledge and looked out.
The window overlooked the sloping slate roof of the lower conservatory. And climbing carefully across the slippery slate tiles, moving toward the edge of the roof that dropped off into the rear gardens, was my father.
“Dad! What are you doing?!” I shrieked out the window.
My father stopped and looked back at us. His gray hair was blowing wildly in the wind. He didn't look terrified. He looked resolute.
“Lorenzo is here for me, Emily!” Dad yelled back over the sound of the alarms. “He faked his death to flush me out! He knows I’m the one who took the photo. If I stay in the house, he’ll slaughter everyone to get to me!”
“Get back inside!” Luca roared, leaning out the window. “We can hold them, Robert! Do not do this!”
“I’m not hiding anymore!” Dad shouted. He turned back and scrambled toward the edge of the roof, disappearing over the side into the dark gardens below.
“No!” I screamed, trying to climb out the window after him.
Luca caught me around the waist, pulling me back onto the carpet. “You can’t help him out there, Emily! We have to get to the armory and cut them off from the ground floor!”
Tears blurred my vision, but I knew he was right. I couldn't climb down a wet slate roof in a sundress, and if I fell, Luca would die trying to save me.
We turned and ran back into the hallway, sprinting toward the servant stairs that led down to the basement.
The sounds of battle were deafening now. The heavy thud-thud-thud of assault rifles echoed from the grand foyer as Marco’s men held the line against Rossi’s mercenaries. The air smelled of cordite and pulverized drywall.
We reached the basement level just as Marco backed into the corridor, firing his weapon down the hall.
“They breached the East doors!” Marco yelled over the gunfire. “There are too many of them, boss! We’re getting flanked!”
Luca grabbed an assault rifle from the open armory cache on the wall, racking the slide with brutal efficiency. He tossed a heavy Kevlar vest to me. “Put this on and get in the panic room with my mother. Now!”
“I’m not leaving you!” I cried, struggling into the heavy vest.
“You are not a soldier, Emily!” Luca shouted, firing a burst down the hallway to cover Marco’s retreat. “If you die, I have nothing left to fight for! Get in the room!”
Before I could argue, a massive explosion shook the foundation of the house. Dust rained down from the ceiling as a section of the basement wall violently blew inward.
Rossi’s men had breached the underground tunnels.
Five mercenaries poured through the hole in the wall, their weapons raised.
Luca and Marco immediately opened fire, dropping the first two men in the doorway, but the other three dove behind a stack of heavy oak wine barrels, returning fire.
Bullets shattered the stone walls around us. I threw myself to the floor, covering my head as concrete shrapnel rained down.
“Cover me!” Luca yelled to Marco.
Luca didn't retreat. He charged forward, sliding across the dusty floor, firing his rifle with deadly precision. He flanked the wine barrels, dropping the remaining three mercenaries in seconds.
The immediate hallway was clear, but the silence was only temporary. The sound of heavy boots echoing through the breached tunnel meant more men were coming.
“Boss,” Marco gasped, leaning heavily against the stone wall. He was clutching his side. Blood was seeping through his fingers. He’d been hit.
“Marco!” Luca dropped his rifle and rushed to the older man, pressing his hands over the wound to stem the bleeding.
“I’m okay,” Marco grunted, his face pale. “Just a graze. But they’re swarming the tunnels. We can’t hold the basement.”
As Luca helped Marco stand, a voice echoed through the dark, breached tunnel.
It wasn't the shout of a mercenary. It was a cold, arrogant, and terrifyingly familiar voice.
“It’s been a long time, Luca,” Lorenzo Rossi called out from the darkness, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “You’ve redecorated since I owned the place.”
Luca went rigid. He stared into the dark tunnel, his hands covered in Marco’s blood.
“Show yourself, Lorenzo,” Luca growled, picking up his rifle.
A figure emerged from the shadows of the tunnel, illuminated by the flickering emergency lights.
Lorenzo Rossi looked older, his hair completely white, but his posture was straight, and his eyes burned with decades of festering hatred. He wore a tailored black suit, completely unarmed, walking into a war zone with the arrogance of a king.
But he wasn't alone.
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Two massive mercenaries flanked him.
And dragged between them, his hands bound behind his back, his face bruised and bleeding, was my father.
