Chapter 8 - Gunfire on Cold Marble
The war was far from over.
Within two hours of Emilio’s capture, the underworld erupted. Sal Costello, realizing his coup in Chicago had been exposed, launched a desperate, scorched-earth offensive. He sent three unmarked SUVs packed with New York mercenaries to hit the Falcone estate before Emilio could confess the full extent of the network.
At three in the morning, the mansion’s outer perimeter alarms blared into the night.
*BOOM!*
A grenade detonated at the front iron gates, rattling the crystal chandeliers in the grand foyer.
"Rosa, get Sophia to the panic room behind the library!" Dante ordered, pulling a pair of modified semi-automatic pistols from a hidden compartment beneath the grand staircase.
"Dante, your arm is bleeding through the bandage!" I cried, terrified.
"I don't need two hands to kill these bastards," Dante growled, his eyes blazing with feral intensity. "Marco! Form a perimeter on the mezzanine! Shoot anything that breaches the double doors!"
I grabbed Sophia and sprinted across the cold marble toward the library. Behind us, the heavy oak entrance doors were blown off their hinges with a concussive roar. Glass rained down from the skylights.
Men dressed in black body armor stormed through the smoke, firing assault rifles. The sound was deafening, the air instantly filling with the acrid stench of sulfur and fire.
"Mommy!" Sophia cried, burying her face into my neck.
"Keep your eyes closed, baby! Hold onto Mommy!" I yelled, diving behind a marble pillar as bullets chewed through the plaster above our heads.
Suddenly, a mercenary rounded the pillar, his rifle pointed straight at my chest. "Drop the kid, lady!"
Pure maternal fury eclipsed my fear. I grabbed a heavy bronze statue from a pedestal and hurled it with all my strength into the man's throat. He gagged, stumbling backward. Before he could recover, a gunshot rang out, and the mercenary dropped dead at my feet.
Dante appeared through the smoke, dual-wielding his weapons, picking off targets with lethal, surgical precision. Every shot he fired found a heart or a head. He was an unstoppable phantom, moving across the blood-slick marble like a wrathful god.
"Move! Now!" Dante shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling us into the fortified library.
He slammed the steel door shut, throwing the hydraulic bolt. Outside, bullets hammered relentlessly against the reinforced metal, but it held firm.
We were safe.
In the dim light of the safe room, Dante leaned against the door, his breathing ragged. The wound on his forearm had reopened, soaking his white shirt in blood, and a grazing bullet had ripped through the side of his vest.
"Dante!" I gasped, dropping to my knees beside him. "You're hit!"
"Just a scratch, Rosa," he breathed, trying to smile, though pain pulled at the corners of his mouth.
I tore off the hem of my silk dress without hesitation, using the fabric to bind his wound tightly. My hands were shaking, tears blinding my vision. "You fool... you could have stayed in the bunker. You came back for us."
Dante reached out, his bloody, calloused fingers gently cupping my jaw, lifting my gaze to meet his.
"There is nothing in this house worth saving except you and that little girl," Dante murmured, his voice husky, filled with a deep, undeniable longing. "Carmela didn't send Sophia to me just to solve a murder, Rosa. She sent her to save my soul."
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Our faces were inches apart. The gunfire outside began to dwindle as Marco’s reinforcements swept the grounds, but inside the vault, the world fell away. Dante leaned in, his lips brushing mine with a gentle, breathtaking reverie—a kiss born from fire, danger, and an unstoppable love that neither of us could deny.
***
