Chapter 5 - Blood in the Glasshouse
Z
"Take her to the lower vault," Dante commanded, his voice shifting instantly back into the commanding tone of a man born to lead an empire.
"No!" I yelled as Luca grabbed my arm, surprisingly strong for a man his age. "I'm not going into some panic room while people are shooting at each other!"
"Cara, move!" Dante barked, reaching into his desk drawer and pulling out a heavy black pistol. The metallic clack of him loading a round into the chamber sent a shiver down my spine. "This isn't a argument. Go!"
Luca pulled me down a long hallway lined with oil paintings, leading toward a concealed service staircase behind a heavy tapestry. Outside, the sound of muffled gunfire shattered the silence of the afternoon. Glass shattered somewhere on the ground floor—the magnificent conservatory, no doubt.
"How did they find this place?" I gasped as we hurried down the narrow stone stairs. "I thought you said it was secure!"
"It was," Luca said grimly, his grip firm on my elbow. "Which means we have a traitor inside the inner circle. Someone gave Vanessa the security codes."
We reached the basement—not a dark, damp cell, but a climate-controlled bunker filled with monitors, server racks, and weapons racks mounted along the concrete walls. Luca pushed me inside and hit a panel on the wall. A massive steel door began to slide shut.
"Stay here," Luca ordered. "Do not open this door for anyone except Dante or me. Do you understand?"
"Luca, wait!" I cried out, but the heavy steel door clicked into place, sealing me in absolute darkness for two agonizing seconds before the low-voltage emergency lighting flickered on, bathing the room in an eerie red glow.
I was alone.
The monitors on the central console showed live feeds from the security cameras around the estate. I rushed over to the screens, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
On Screen 4, I saw men in tactical gear moving through the gardens, carrying silenced submachine guns. On Screen 2, the main foyer was a warzone. Marble pillars were chipped by gunfire, smoke billowed from the doorway, and Dante—standing behind the grand mahogany desk—was firing with deadly, calm precision.
He moved like a dancer, fluid and ruthless. There was no hesitation in his movements. He wasn't just a businessman; he was a man raised in the shadows of a empire that survived on violence.
Suddenly, Screen 6 caught my attention.
It was the secondary entrance to the basement. A woman in a dark leather jacket was entering the keycode into the digital pad—a code that should have been secret.
Vanessa.
She wasn't waiting at home. She had come here herself, surrounded by three heavily armed men. And they were heading straight for the vault level.
My blood ran cold. The traitor hadn't just given her the outer gate codes; they had given her access to the entire underground system.
I looked around the vault in a panic. The heavy steel door I had just come through was locked, but the monitors showed Vanessa and her men approaching the secondary vault door on the far side of the room.
They knew I was in here.
I looked frantically at the weapons rack on the wall. Handguns, rifles, tactical knives. I had never held a gun in my life. The heaviest thing I had ever picked up was a tray full of heavy coffee pots at Bellini's.
My hands shook violently as I approached the rack. I reached for a small, compact handgun, my bandaged fingers awkward against the cold metal. I pulled the slide back the way I had seen Dante do on the monitor, my heart leaping into my throat as a bullet clicked into the chamber.
The electronic keypad outside the vault door chimed. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The heavy steel bolt retracted with a loud, hydraulic hiss.
The door swung open.
Vanessa stepped into the red-lit room, flanked by two men with drawn weapons. She looked around the vault, her eyes landing on me as I stood behind the central console, raising the gun with both hands.
"Look at you," Vanessa sneered, stepping forward, completely unfazed by the weapon pointed at her chest. "Playing dress-up in Dante's playhouse. You really thought you were special, didn't you, Cara?"
"Don't come any closer," I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, though the barrel of the gun wobbled in the air.
"You're pathetic," she hissed, taking another step. "You're a nobody from the East Side who got lucky. Did you really think Dante cared about you? You were just a convenient pawn to make him look like a victim."
"He didn't pay people to cut your brake lines," I spat back. "You did that all by yourself."
Vanessa's eyes flashed with pure venom. "He was weak! He wanted to turn the family legitimate! He was going to sell off the operations, give away our power to auditors and lawyers! I built this empire with his father, and I wasn't going to let Dante throw it away for his high-minded ideals!"
"So you decided to kill him," a deep voice echoed from the doorway behind her.
Vanessa froze.
Dante stood in the threshold, his shirt soaked with sweat and blood, his dark eyes fixed on his wife. Behind him, Luca held a rifle trained on her remaining men.
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"Dante..." Vanessa whispered, her composure slipping for the first time.
"It's over, Vanessa," Dante said softly, stepping into the room. "The police aren't coming to help you. And the board just received the audio recording from Bellini's private booth."
