Chapter 4 - Siege at the Estate“Get down!” I yelled, shoving my mother backward against the concrete wall with enough force to knock the wind out of her.
I spun around, scooping Grace into my arms before she could even cry out. She weighed almost nothing, her body light as a bird from months of calculated malnutrition. I carried her toward the back corner of the panic room, kicking a heavy steel supply locker over to serve as an improvised barricade against the doorway.
“Dante... what's happening?” Grace whimpered, her hands gripping my lapels as a sharp contraction made her gasp in agony. “The baby... Dante, the baby is coming... the stress... I think I'm going into labor!”
“Hold on to me, cara. Just breathe,” I commanded, pulling her head against my chest while keeping my pistol aimed squarely at the shattered entrance of the room.
Outside in the hallway, the heavy footsteps stopped.
A familiar voice rang out through a tactical bullhorn—Marcus, the head of our estate security detail, a man who had served my father for thirty years and whom I had trusted implicitly with my life.
“Boss! We know you're in there!” Marcus called out, his voice echoing coldly down the stone corridor. “Mrs. Rossi has already briefed the inner council. By unanimous emergency decree of the syndicate elders, you have been temporarily relieved of command due to compromised judgment and emotional instability. Step out of the room with your hands on your head, and no one gets hurt.”
My mother stepped past the barricade, her composure entirely restored. She adjusted her suit jacket, looking down at me with a victorious, pitying expression.
“You see, Dante?” she said smoothly, ignoring the armed men stationed outside. “Power is not maintained by sentimentality. It is maintained by absolute control. Marcus and the guards know who actually signs their paychecks. They know who keeps this family afloat.”
I stared at my mother, a dark, dangerous realization washing over me. This wasn't just a domestic dispute between a tyrannical mother-in-law and an unwanted wife. This was a calculated coup, engineered from the shadows while I was distracted fighting wars across Europe. They had planned to get rid of Grace quietly, wait for me to return broken or distracted, and slowly strip away my authority until I was nothing more than a figurehead boss dancing to my mother's strings.
“Marcus!” I shouted back, my voice cutting through the corridor like a whip. “You swore an oath to the head of the Rossi family! You think a council of cowards hiding behind my mother's skirts can override bloodline authority? Cross that threshold, and you die as traitors!”
A heavy silence hung in the hallway for three agonizing seconds.
Then, Marcus replied, his voice flat and devoid of emotion: “Orders are orders, Boss. Forgive us.”
Bang!
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A storm of high-caliber bullets slammed into the stone walls around the doorway, sending a blinding cloud of white plaster, dust, and screaming metal shrapnel flying into the room.
The siege of the Rossi estate had officially begun, and we were trapped in the belly of the beast.
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