Chapter 2 - THE BETRAYAL IN THE SHADOWS
The darkness in the room was absolute, heavy, and suffocating.
For two full seconds, the only sound was the chaotic crackle of Marcus’s radio. Then, the heavy oak door of the bedroom was kicked open from the hallway.
Dominic moved faster than I could process. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He reached for his mother. He pulled Mrs. Russo from the floor and shoved her behind the solid oak frame of the antique wardrobe.
He grabbed my arm next, pulling me into the same narrow alcove.
Celia didn't move toward us. In the dim moonlight filtering through the window, I saw her stepping toward the doorway, her hands raised slightly, waiting for the men.
"They're on the east staircase," Marcus’s voice echoed from the hall. Gunfire erupted downstairs. Sharp, deafening pops that rattled the windowpanes.
I was trembling so violently my teeth clicked. I had never heard a real gunshot in my life.
Dominic pressed a finger to his lips, looking at me. His eyes were adjusted to the dark now, cold and calculating.
"Dominic is in the corner," Celia’s voice rang out. Clear. Unafraid.
She was giving us up.
Footsteps rushed into the room. Two men, heavily built, holding flashlights and suppressed pistols.
"Good girl, Celia," one of the men growled. It wasn't a stranger's voice. It was Paulie, Dominic’s second-in-command.
Dominic didn't flinch, but I felt the sudden, terrifying stillness in his chest. His own uncle. His mentor.
"Take the old woman," Paulie ordered. "And put a bullet in the maid. She wasn't supposed to be here."
My heart stopped.
But as the flashlight beam swept toward our corner, Mrs. Russo did something impossible. She reached into the pocket of her pale blue nightgown and pulled out a heavy, ornate silver rosary.
She didn't pray with it. She threw it.
The heavy silver cross shattered the bedroom window with a violent crash.
The men spun toward the noise, their flashlights darting to the broken glass.
In that split second, Dominic surged forward. He didn't use a gun. He used the darkness. A sickening crunch echoed as he drove his elbow into Paulie’s throat. The flashlight dropped. The second man fired wildly, the bullet tearing through the plaster right next to my head.
Dominic disarmed him in a blur of motion, the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor shaking the room.
Celia screamed and ran for the hallway.
Dominic grabbed the dropped flashlight and the gun. He turned to me, his chest heaving, his tailored suit ruined.
"Emily," he said, his voice deadly calm. "Do you know the servant passages?"
"Yes," I choked out.
"Lead us to the basement."
He reached down to help his mother. As the flashlight swept over the floor, it illuminated the shattered glass, and something else.
Paulie’s dropped jacket. Pinned to the lapel was a gold crest—a crest I had seen before.
Not on Dominic’s men.
On the medical transport driver I had brought water to an hour ago.
We were completely surrounded.
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And as we stepped into the hallway, Marcus, the head of security, was standing at the top of the stairs, aiming his gun directly at Dominic’s chest.
"Put it down, boss," Marcus said quietly.
