Chapter 8 - THE ASHES OF THE FORGED WILL
Eleanor pressed the silver rose with all the strength she had left in her eighty-one-year-old thumb.
Instantly, the entire Caruso mansion went pitch black.
The power grid cut out, plunging the grand foyer into absolute darkness. But it wasn't just the lights.
Steel shutters slammed down over every window and door in the estate, sealing the mansion like a tomb.
Daniel panicked in the dark.
“What’s happening?!” Daniel screamed. “Turn the lights on! Shoot him!”
But in the darkness, Antonio was a predator in his own territory.
He didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, sweeping the mercenary’s legs out from under him, snatching the assault rifle from the man’s hands as he fell.
Antonio grabbed his mother by the waist, dragging her behind the heavy mahogany dining table just as blind gunfire erupted across the foyer.
“Hold your fire!” Daniel yelled to his men, terrified of being hit by friendly fire in the pitch black.
Suddenly, emergency red strobe lights began flashing from the ceiling, painting the foyer in a chaotic, bloody glow.
The heavy steel doors of the study burst open.
Katie ran into the room, holding her five-year-old son in one arm, and a metal trash can in the other.
She threw the trash can onto the floor right in front of Daniel.
Inside the metal bin, a fire was raging.
Daniel stared at it in confusion.
“What is this?!” Daniel demanded, pointing his gun at her.
Katie stood tall, her green eyes blazing with defiance.
“It’s the real will,” Katie said clearly, her voice echoing over the alarms.
Daniel froze. “What?”
“Victoria gave me the original will to hold onto before she forged the new one,” Katie explained, stepping back toward the study. “The one Henry Caruso actually signed. The one that left everything to Antonio.”
Daniel stared at the burning paper in the trash can.
“No!” Daniel screamed, dropping to his knees, frantically trying to pull the burning paper out of the fire, burning his hands in the process. “No! My birthright!”
But it was a trick.
While Daniel was distracted by the fire, Carlo and his men, equipped with night-vision goggles, systematically neutralized the blinded Romano mercenaries.
Within sixty seconds, all ten mercenaries were disarmed and pinned to the floor.
The red strobe lights stopped, and the main chandeliers flickered back on.
Daniel looked around, realizing he was entirely alone, kneeling in front of a burning trash can with severely burned hands.
Antonio stepped out from behind the dining table, his gun aimed directly at Daniel’s head.
“It’s over, Daniel,” Antonio said coldly.
Daniel looked up, tears of rage and agony streaming down his face.
“You think you won?” Daniel laughed, a broken, hysterical sound. “You’ll never have peace! You carry the Romano bloodline in your house! You are cursed!”
He raised his gun, pointing it at Antonio’s chest.
“Antonio, no!” Eleanor screamed, trying to stand up.
But Antonio didn't flinch.
Before Daniel could pull the trigger, a single gunshot rang out from the top of the grand staircase.
Daniel’s eyes went wide. He looked down at his chest, a second bullet hole appearing right next to the one Victoria had given him.
He collapsed onto the marble floor, dead.
Antonio looked up.
Standing at the top of the stairs, lowering a smoking hunting rifle, was eighty-one-year-old Eleanor Caruso.
She had used the wall to guide herself up the steps during the chaos, found the rifle mounted in the hallway, and aimed at the blurred shadow of the man threatening her son.
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“He was a monster,” Eleanor whispered, her voice breaking as she dropped the rifle. “Just like his father.”
Antonio ran up the stairs, catching his mother as she collapsed, holding her tightly as the nightmare finally came to an end.
