Chapter 9 - BLOOD BEFORE SUNRISE
Cecelia was terrible at escaping.
She cried on the balcony ledge. She slipped twice. She kept whispering prayers while I tried to keep both of us alive. If I had not needed her confession, I might have pushed her into a rosebush and apologized later.
The ledge ran along the east side of the mansion, narrow and slick with rain. Below us, the garden dropped into darkness. Above us, men leaned out the studio window, shouting.
A bullet struck the stone near my hand.
Cecelia screamed.
“Keep moving!” I hissed.
“I can’t!”
“You poisoned a baby for weeks. You can manage ten more feet.”
That shut her up.
Dante appeared at the far end of the ledge like a shadow with a gun.
“Jump to me.”
Cecelia shook her head violently.
Dante looked at me. “Make her.”
I shoved Cecelia.
She half-jumped, half-fell into Dante’s arms, nearly knocking him backward. He passed her through a maintenance window and reached for me.
Behind me, someone climbed onto the ledge.
I saw his shoes first.
Then the gun.
I pressed the black device once.
Dante heard.
He fired past me.
The man dropped out of sight with a cry, landing somewhere in the hedges below.
Dante pulled me through the window.
We ran.
This time stealth was gone. Alarms screamed. Men shouted into radios. Lights flashed across corridors.
Dante dragged Cecelia with one hand and held his pistol with the other.
“Service stairs!” I shouted.
“No,” Dante said. “They’ll block them.”
“Laundry chute?”
“You want to do that again?”
“Not really!”
We turned into the portrait gallery. Old Rossis stared down from gilded frames, each man looking like he had been born disappointed.
At the far end, Marco appeared with six armed men.
He was not smiling now.
“Mara,” he called. “You are becoming irritating.”
Dante aimed.
Marco lifted one hand. His men spread out.
Cecelia sobbed. “He’ll kill us.”
“Quiet,” I snapped.
Marco’s gaze moved to the painting under my arm.
His expression changed.
There it was.
Fear.
Not of Dante’s gun.
Of Sofia’s unfinished canvas.
“You don’t know what you’re holding,” he said.
“I know you want it.”
He stepped forward. “Give it to me, and I give you Tyler.”
I almost laughed.
“You keep offering me men I don’t want.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
Dante murmured, “Mara, when I say down, drop.”
Marco’s men raised their guns.
Before Dante could speak, a voice thundered from the opposite balcony.
“Marco.”
Everyone froze.
Lorenzo stood above us on the mezzanine, flanked by six loyal men. Blood stained his shirt. His face was bruised. But he was alive, and fury moved around him like weather.
Marco looked up slowly.
“Cousin.”
Lorenzo descended the stairs.
“You called a council without me.”
“You were busy abducting your son.”
“My son is alive because the woman you framed broke your rules.”
Marco’s eyes flicked toward me.
“Hysterical maids make poor witnesses.”
Lorenzo reached the gallery floor.
Behind him, more men appeared. Behind Marco, his men tightened formation.
The house held its breath.
This was not just a hallway confrontation.
It was a civil war deciding whether to begin.
Then an older man’s voice cut through the tension.
“Enough.”
Uncle Sal entered from the west corridor.
He was in his seventies, silver-haired, leaning on a cane with a gold handle. His suit was immaculate. His eyes were colder than Lorenzo’s had ever been.
Everyone lowered their weapons slightly.
Even Lorenzo.
That told me everything.
Salvatore Rossi did not need to hold a gun. Men became weapons for him.
He looked at me as if I were dirt on the marble.
“This has become embarrassing.”
Lorenzo’s voice was low. “You knew.”
Uncle Sal sighed. “I knew Sofia was troublesome. I knew the Bellini trust made the child valuable. I knew Marco lacked patience.”
Marco’s face tightened. “Uncle—”
Sal raised one finger.
Marco fell silent.
So the real king had stepped out from behind the curtain.
I pressed record on my phone inside my pocket.
Sal looked at Lorenzo. “You were never supposed to be sentimental. Love made you careless. Her death made you unstable. The child made you weak.”
Lorenzo did not move.
Sal continued. “A family cannot be run by a man who abandons judgment every time a baby cries.”
The words struck me so hard I felt them in my bones.
Every cruel person says compassion is weakness because it is the one thing they cannot fake.
Lorenzo’s voice was quiet. “You helped kill my wife.”
“I corrected a succession problem.”
The gallery went utterly still.
Even Marco looked shaken by the bluntness.
Cecelia made a faint sound beside me.
Dante’s eyes flicked toward my pocket.
He knew I was recording.
Then Uncle Sal looked at me.
“And you, little maid, should have stayed invisible.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
Sal’s men raised their weapons.
Dante pulled me behind him.
The front doors of the mansion suddenly burst open.
Every head turned.
A woman walked in wearing a dark coat, rain on her silver-blonde hair, and an expression that made every armed man hesitate.
Lorenzo whispered, “Francesca?”
Dante looked stunned.
I did not know her.
But Uncle Sal did.
His face drained of color.
May you like
The woman removed her gloves slowly.
“Hello, Salvatore,” she said. “Did you miss your daughter?”
