Chapter 10 - The Chapel CorridorThe glass did not break from a bullet.
It broke from above.
A man in black tactical gear crashed through the winter garden ceiling on a rope, boots striking the marble planter hard enough to crack it. Another followed. Then a third.
For one insane second, I thought more enemies had arrived.
Then Nico shouted, “Ours!”
The garden exploded into motion.
Mrs. Bellini dropped her weight suddenly, stomping backward onto Luca’s foot. He cursed and lost balance. Nico fired once—not at Luca, but at the gun in his hand.
The shot struck metal.
The gun flew across the marble.
A guard tackled Luca from the side.
I grabbed Emma and fell behind a planter as glass rained down around us.
Alessandro moved his wheelchair with brutal precision, backing into cover behind a stone citrus tub. A shard of glass sliced across his cheek. He did not seem to notice.
The hatch burst open.
Valentina emerged from below with two men behind her.
Her perfect hair was ruined. Dust streaked her face. One burgundy nail was missing. Her eyes found Emma immediately.
“There!” she screamed.
The tactical men turned.
Nico fired.
The winter garden filled with shouting, echo, shattered glass, and the sharp smell of gunpowder.
I covered Emma with my body.
She shook beneath me.
“Don’t look,” I whispered.
But I looked.
Because someone had to know where danger was.
Valentina ducked behind a bench, pulling something from her coat.
Not a gun.
A small black device.
Alessandro saw it too.
“Nico! Detonator!”
Nico turned, but one of Valentina’s men slammed into him.
Alessandro moved.
I had never seen a wheelchair become a weapon.
He drove straight into the bench, hitting it hard enough to knock Valentina sideways. The black device skittered across the marble toward me.
Everything slowed.
Valentina lunged.
Alessandro grabbed her wrist.
She struck him across the face.
He did not let go.
The device stopped inches from my hand.
I picked it up without thinking.
“Sophia, no!” Nico shouted.
Valentina’s eyes went wide.
“Give it to me!”
I looked at the device.
One switch.
One red light.
I had no idea what it controlled.
Doors?
Explosives?
Gates?
The house?
Emma clung to my coat.
“Mama.”
Valentina’s voice turned sweet again.
“You don’t know what that is.”
“You’re right.”
“So hand it here before you kill everyone.”
Alessandro’s grip tightened on her wrist.
“She is lying.”
Valentina laughed breathlessly.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he said. “But I know you.”
Her face twisted.
For the first time, I saw something raw beneath her polish.
Not fear.
Hatred.
“You never knew me.”
“I did.”
“No. You saw what you wanted. Competence. Loyalty. A useful woman who kept your broken body running while you sat in your office pretending you still ruled.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“I trusted you.”
“You used me.”
“I gave you authority.”
“You gave me errands.”
“You ran the clinic.”
“With Luca watching every account and you vetoing every decision from that chair.”
Luca groaned from where guards pinned him to the floor.
“Valentina, shut up.”
She turned on him.
“You shut up! You ruined everything.”
Alessandro’s eyes flicked between them.
“There it is.”
Valentina realized she had spoken too much.
But rage had opened the door.
And now it would not close.
“You were supposed to die on that road,” she hissed at Alessandro. “Do you know that? Clean. Fast. Tragic. The great Alessandro Moretti murdered by rivals. Luca takes over, I run the clinic, the family survives.”
My hand tightened around the device.
Alessandro’s voice was deadly calm.
“But I lived.”
“You lived wrong.”
The words struck him.
I saw it.
So did she.
“You came back half a man and twice as stubborn,” Valentina spat. “You questioned accounts. Questioned suppliers. Questioned loyalty. You made everyone mourn you while you sat there breathing.”
Nico had subdued the man fighting him. The tactical team had the other intruders down.
No one interrupted.
Because Valentina was confessing.
Every word.
Every poisonous word.
Alessandro looked toward the corner of the garden.
A security camera, independent from the dead house system, blinked red.
Recording.
Valentina followed his gaze.
Her face drained.
“No.”
“Yes,” Alessandro said.
She jerked against his grip.
He held firm, though pain carved lines around his mouth.
I saw his injured arm trembling.
His body was failing him.
But his will was not.
Valentina lunged suddenly—not at him.
At Emma.
I moved first.
I swung the black device as hard as I could.
It struck Valentina’s temple.
She dropped to one knee.
Nico caught her before she hit the floor, twisting her arms behind her back.
The device cracked open on the marble.
Inside was not a detonator.
It was a signal jammer.
Small.
Expensive.
Powerful.
The remaining emergency lights steadied.
Radios crackled back to life.
The house began waking up.
Luca screamed from the floor, “You have no idea what you’ve done!”
Alessandro turned toward him.
“I know exactly what she did.”
Sirens sounded outside.
Real ones now.
Police.
Federal vehicles.
Ambulances.
Someone had called them before the system died.
Maybe Dr. Mercer.
Maybe Nico.
Maybe Alessandro had planned for betrayal longer than anyone knew.
Valentina struggled in Nico’s grip, eyes blazing.
“You think they’ll believe you? A Moretti? A crime lord in a wheelchair? You think a lab report makes you innocent?”
Alessandro looked at her for a long time.
Then at Emma.
Then at me.
“No,” he said. “But it makes you guilty.”
Mrs. Bellini, still on the floor, began to laugh softly.
Not joyfully.
Like a woman who had survived long enough to see a ghost dragged into daylight.
Nico hauled Valentina up.
Luca was dragged beside her.
They looked smaller now.
Not harmless.
Never harmless.
But smaller.
Alessandro wheeled toward me.
The cut on his cheek bled down his jaw. His left sleeve was soaked. His face was gray with pain.
Emma reached for him.
“You hurt.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You need doctor.”
“Yes.”
“You need cookie.”
His mouth moved.
This time it was almost a real smile.
“Yes.”
Then his eyes rolled back.
May you like
His body slumped sideways.
And Alessandro Moretti fell unconscious in his chair as the chapel bells began to ring.
