Chapter 2 - The Child in the Crossfire
The first bullet struck the marble column where Damiano’s head had been less than a second earlier.
He moved faster than I thought possible.
One arm swept Emma off the floor while the other pulled me behind the massive staircase. Armed guards overturned tables and formed a barrier as gunfire tore through the entrance hall.
Glass rained from the shattered chandelier.
Men shouted in Italian and English. Muzzle flashes cut through the darkness. One of the visiting dons fell behind a marble planter as his bodyguards returned fire toward the balcony.
Damiano pressed Emma against his chest.
“Keep her head down,” he ordered.
I wrapped myself around her.
She was shaking so violently that her teeth clicked together.
“Mommy!”
“I’m here.”
“Is this because I told?”
“No. No, baby. This is not your fault.”
Another burst of gunfire struck the banister above us.
Damiano leaned around the column and fired twice. A shadow on the balcony collapsed.
“Luca!” he shouted.
“East wing compromised!”
“Seal the courtyard.”
“The system’s down.”
Of course it was.
The bomb had not been the only part of the plan.
Isabella’s people had sabotaged the mansion’s security before the dons arrived. The explosive was meant to kill them quickly, but if it failed, the attackers had prepared a second assault.
Damiano removed his jacket and placed it over Emma’s head to protect her from falling glass.
“Can you run?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
“There’s a service passage behind the portrait near the library.”
“I know it.”
“Take her there.”
“What about you?”
His eyes turned cold.
“I’m going to end this.”
Emma reached out from beneath the jacket and grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t go.”
For a moment, the violence around us seemed to disappear.
He crouched closer.
“I have to protect everyone.”
“Who protects you?”
The question struck him harder than the bullets striking the walls.
Before he could answer, Don Salvatore crawled behind the staircase with two guards. He was in his late sixties, his silver hair perfectly combed despite the chaos.
“Moretti,” he growled, “your peace meeting is becoming inconvenient.”
“Then leave.”
“My convoy is pinned down.”
“Consider it motivation to help.”
Salvatore glanced at Emma.
“This is the child?”
“Yes.”
“She truly found the device?”
“She did.”
The old don looked at her with unexpected respect.
“You have sharp eyes, little one.”
Emma peeked from beneath Damiano’s jacket.
“The red light was easy to see.”
A bullet ricocheted off the floor.
Salvatore’s expression hardened.
“Who betrayed us?”
“Isabella.”
“Your bride?”
“Former bride.”
Salvatore released a humorless laugh.
“I warned you that marriage and business rarely share a peaceful bed.”
“You’ve buried three wives.”
“And learned something from each.”
Luca appeared through the smoke.
“We have a route to the library, but it won’t stay open.”
Damiano looked at me.
“Go.”
This time I obeyed.
Luca led us along the wall while three guards covered our movement. Damiano stayed close enough that I could feel his hand against my back.
Halfway across the hall, a man stepped from behind a doorway.
He wore the uniform of Damiano’s security team.
For one dangerous second, everyone hesitated.
Then Emma screamed.
“That’s the sad-eyed man!”
Matteo’s face twisted with anguish.
He raised his gun.
Damiano aimed at him.
But Matteo did not fire at us.
He turned and shot an attacker coming through the doorway behind him.
The attacker fell.
Matteo dropped his weapon and raised both hands.
“They have my wife and son,” he shouted. “Isabella promised they would live!”
Damiano kept his gun trained on him.
“Where?”
“An abandoned shipping warehouse in Red Hook.”
“How many men?”
“I don’t know. She never told me.”
“Who is she working for?”
Matteo’s eyes moved toward the five dons.
“With someone in this house.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when a bullet struck him in the shoulder.
He spun and collapsed.
Damiano fired toward the balcony again.
“Move!”
We reached the library.
Luca pulled aside a large oil painting, revealing a narrow steel door. He entered a code. The lock opened.
“Inside,” Damiano ordered.
I carried Emma into the passage. Damiano followed, then Luca pulled the painting back into place.
The sounds of the battle became muffled.
Emergency lights flickered on along the concrete walls.
The passage was narrow and cold, designed for escape rather than comfort. Emma buried her face against my neck.
“Where does this go?” I asked.
“To the old wine cellar,” Luca said. “From there, we can reach the underground garage.”
Damiano checked his weapon.
“We’re not using the garage.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because Matteo said the betrayal came from someone in the house. That means one of the visiting delegations may be involved.”
Luca frowned.
“You think a don arranged the attack?”
“I think Isabella needed political support after my death. She would never act without someone promising her protection.”
“Salvatore?”
“Too obvious.”
“Vescari?”
“Too cautious.”
“What about Romano?”
Damiano’s expression gave nothing away.
“All of them are suspects.”
We moved deeper into the passage.
For eight months, I had served meals in this house without understanding how many secrets existed behind its walls. Hidden corridors. Reinforced doors. Emergency tunnels.
It made sense.
Men like Damiano did not build homes.
They built fortresses disguised as homes.
Emma lifted her head.
“My bunny is gone.”
I looked at her empty hands.
Her stuffed rabbit, Rosie, must have fallen in the entrance hall.
“We’ll get another one.”
“No.”
“Emma, sweetheart—”
“Daddy gave me Rosie.”
I stopped walking.
Damiano turned.
I rarely spoke about Emma’s father because there was little worth saying. Adrian had been charming when we met and cruel when life became difficult. He gave Emma the bunny shortly after she was born.
Then he disappeared before her first birthday.
Emma remembered him only through stories I had softened over the years.
“Rosie is important,” she whispered.
“I know.”
Damiano looked back toward the hidden door.
“Luca, take them to the cellar.”
“No,” I said immediately.
He ignored me and began walking back.
I caught his arm.
“You cannot go into that hall for a toy.”
“It matters to her.”
“You could be killed.”
His eyes dropped to my hand on his arm.
I released him.
“Emma has already lost enough tonight,” he said.
Before I could argue, he disappeared into the darkness.
Luca stared after him.
“He has executed men for touching him without permission.”
“Thank you for telling me that now.”
For the first time, Luca almost smiled.
We continued toward the cellar.
The passage opened into a large underground room lined with wooden barrels. Dim amber lights glowed along the stone walls.
Two guards were already there, both loyal men I recognized from the kitchen entrances.
Luca spoke quietly into his radio.
“North corridor?”
Static answered.
He tried again.
Nothing.
“The jammer is still active,” he muttered.
A sound came from behind the wine racks.
Metal scraping against stone.
Luca signaled for silence.
He drew his gun and moved toward the noise.
One of the guards went left. The other covered the stairs.
Emma clung to me.
A panel suddenly opened in the wall.
A man burst through.
Luca tackled him before he could raise his weapon. They crashed against a barrel. The gun slid across the floor.
The second guard kicked it away.
The intruder reached for a knife.
Luca struck him once in the throat, then slammed him facedown against the stone.
“Who sent you?”
The man laughed through broken breaths.
“You’re already dead.”
Luca twisted his arm.
“Who?”
“Ask the girl’s mother.”
Everyone looked at me.
My body went cold.
“What does that mean?”
The attacker smiled.
“You really don’t know who she is, do you?”
Luca pressed the barrel of his gun against the man’s neck.
“Explain.”
“She isn’t Sophia Bennett.”
I could barely breathe.
“Yes, I am.”
The man laughed again.
“Tell Moretti to ask her about Adrian Cross.”
Emma tightened her arms around me.
The name echoed through the cellar.
My daughter’s father.
Luca looked at me differently now.
“How does he know Adrian?”
“I don’t know.”
The attacker turned his head enough to look at Emma.
“Your daddy says hello, little princess.”
I moved before anyone could stop me.
I crossed the room and slapped him so hard that blood flew from his lip.
“You stay away from her.”
He grinned.
“That fire belongs in the family.”
Luca dragged him to his feet.
“Lock him in the storage cage.”
The guards moved him away.
I stood frozen.
Adrian was involved.
The man who had abandoned us five years earlier had somehow become connected to an attempt on Damiano’s life.
Emma looked up.
“Daddy is here?”
“No.”
“He said Daddy said hello.”
“He was lying.”
But I no longer knew whether that was true.
The cellar door opened.
Every weapon turned toward it.
Damiano stepped inside.
His shirt was torn near the shoulder. Blood stained his knuckles, but he was alive.
And in one hand, he carried Emma’s stuffed bunny.
“Rosie!”
Emma ran to him.
He knelt and gave it back.
One of the bunny’s ears had been torn, and gray dust covered its fur, but Emma hugged it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
“Thank you.”
Damiano touched the top of her head.
“You’re welcome.”
Luca approached him.
“We captured an intruder.”
“Who?”
“Unknown. But he knew Sophia.”
Damiano’s eyes moved to me.
“He mentioned Adrian Cross.”
The softness vanished from Damiano’s face.
“You know that name?” I asked.
He did not answer immediately.
“Adrian Cross worked for my father.”
My stomach dropped.
“What did he do?”
“He handled accounts, transportation, and information. Then he stole eight million dollars and vanished after selling the names of Moretti informants to federal agents and rival families.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
“He told me he sold insurance.”
Damiano’s expression hardened, but not with anger toward me.
“When did you meet him?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Where?”
“A restaurant in Queens. I was a waitress.”
“How long were you together?”
“Two years. Then he disappeared.”
“Shortly after Emma was born?”
“Yes.”
Damiano looked at Emma.
Something in his eyes changed.
“Adrian did not disappear because he was afraid of fatherhood.”
“Then why?”
“He was running from me.”
A distant explosion shook dust from the cellar ceiling.
Emma screamed.
Damiano pulled both of us close as the lights flickered.
Luca checked the stairwell.
“That came from the east garage.”
Damiano looked at his watch.
“The attackers are destroying exits. They want us trapped until reinforcements arrive.”
“Whose reinforcements?” I asked.
He met my gaze.
“Your daughter’s father may be leading them.”
The room seemed to tilt.
All those years, I had imagined Adrian somewhere far away, living a coward’s life.
Now he was close enough to threaten Emma.
Damiano reached into his pocket and removed a small phone.
“The jammer cannot block this signal. One line, encrypted.”
“Who are you calling?” Luca asked.
“My brother.”
Luca’s face changed.
“You said never to involve him.”
“I also said no one threatens a child under my roof.”
He dialed.
A man answered after one ring.
Damiano’s voice was calm.
“Enzo, come home.”
A pause.
Then a deep voice replied through the speaker.
“Who started the war?”
Damiano looked at Emma, then at me.
“A ghost.”
He ended the call.
Luca exhaled slowly.
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“We may not have twenty minutes.”
Damiano reloaded his weapon.
“Then we make them regret every second.”
Above us, the gunfire stopped.
The silence that followed was worse.
A voice came through the mansion’s emergency speakers.
Male. Familiar.
My knees weakened before he even said my name.
“Sophia.”
Emma looked toward the ceiling.
“Daddy?”
The voice continued.
“I know you can hear me. Bring Emma to the main hall, and I’ll let everyone else walk away.”
Damiano’s face became carved stone.
The speaker crackled.
“Refuse, and I burn the Moretti empire down with you inside it.”
Emma looked at me with confusion and hope.
“Mommy, Daddy came back.”
I held her against my chest.
“No, sweetheart.”
Damiano stepped closer.
His voice was quiet enough for only me to hear.
“That man is not here to reclaim his daughter.”
“What does he want?”
“The one thing more valuable than money.”
“What?”
May you like
Damiano looked toward the ceiling as Adrian’s voice echoed through the mansion.
“Leverage.”
