Chapter 7 - THE LION'S ROAR
“Vincenzo!” Beatrice called out from the driveway, her voice dripping with venomous triumph. “I know you’re in there! Bring me the ledger, and I’ll let the maid and the sick boy walk away.”
Vincenzo stood slowly, leaving Silas bleeding and gasping on the marble floor. He looked at me, crouching protectively over Caleb, clutching the recipe book to my chest. Caleb was wheezing terribly, his face pale and frightened.
“Take him to the panic room behind the kitchen,” Vincenzo whispered urgently, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “Do not come out until I come for you.”
“I’m not leaving you to fight a dozen men alone,” I said, my voice shaking but resolute.
“You are keeping my heart safe,” Vincenzo said, quoting his own words from the explosion earlier. He gently touched Caleb’s shoulder. “I will handle my sister.”
I grabbed Caleb’s hand and dragged him toward the kitchen hallway just as Beatrice’s mercenaries breached the front doors.
“Find them!” Beatrice shrieked, stepping over the shattered glass in her expensive heels. “And kill Silas! He’s a liability!”
I pushed Caleb behind the massive stainless steel kitchen island, desperately scanning the walls for the hidden panel Vincenzo had mentioned.
But before I could find it, a heavy boot kicked the kitchen door open.
One of Beatrice’s mercenaries stepped in, an assault rifle raised. He locked eyes with me. He saw the heavy leather book in my hands.
“I found the girl,” he spoke into a radio on his shoulder. “She has the book.”
He raised his rifle, aiming directly at my chest.
Panic flooded my veins. I didn't have a weapon. I didn't have a way out.
But I had the heavy silver lighter Vincenzo had given me.
I reached into my pocket, my fingers closing around the cold metal. With every ounce of strength I had, I hurled the heavy silver lighter directly at the man’s face.
It was a desperate, stupid throw, but it hit him squarely in the bridge of the nose with a sickening crunch.
The mercenary yelled, stumbling backward, dropping one hand from his rifle to clutch his bleeding face.
Before he could recover, a massive shadow filled the doorway.
Vincenzo didn't use a gun. He grabbed the mercenary by the back of his tactical vest, hurling him effortlessly across the kitchen like a ragdoll. The man crashed into the industrial stove and slumped to the floor, unconscious.
Vincenzo turned to me, his chest heaving, blood dripping from a fresh cut on his cheek. “The panic room, Dana. Now.”
“Vincenzo, stop!”
Beatrice walked into the kitchen, flanked by three more mercenaries, their guns trained on Vincenzo.
She looked immaculate, her hatred radiating off her in waves. “It’s over, little brother. You survived the bomb, but you can’t survive this. Hand over the ledger.”
Vincenzo didn't raise his hands. He stood tall, placing himself squarely between Beatrice and me.
“You burned Elena alive,” Vincenzo said, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that seemed to vibrate the floorboards. “You murdered our sister for money.”
Beatrice let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Elena was a weak, pathetic girl who didn't understand what it took to run this family! Our father gave her everything just because her mother was his wife! My mother scrubbed his floors! I had the blood of the Morretti lions, and they treated me like a stray dog!”
“So you killed her,” Vincenzo said, his jaw locked tight.
“I took what was mine!” Beatrice screamed, losing her polished composure. “And now I am taking the empire! Give me the ledger, Vincenzo! With those names, my husband will control the governor, the judges, the police. The Morretti family will be mine!”
“You are not a Morretti,” a fragile, shaking voice echoed from the hallway.
Everyone froze.
Rosa Morretti stood in the doorway. She was wearing her cream-colored cashmere shawl, her white hair disheveled, but she wasn't hunched over. She wasn't trembling.
The haze of dementia had completely lifted from her eyes. She was experiencing one of her rare, hour-long windows of absolute, terrifying clarity.
She walked into the kitchen, stepping past the mercenaries, who were too confused by the sudden appearance of the fragile old woman to stop her.
Rosa stopped in front of Beatrice.
“You are not my daughter,” Rosa said, her voice clear and strong. “I tried to love you, Beatrice. When my husband brought you into this house, I washed your hair. I fed you at my table. I treated you like my own flesh and blood.”
Beatrice’s face contorted with rage. “You pitied me! You looked at me like a charity case!”
“I looked at you like a child who needed a mother,” Rosa corrected, tears welling in her sharp eyes. “But you were rotten inside. You were born with a darkness I couldn't love away.”
“Shut up!” Beatrice shrieked, snatching a pistol from the mercenary next to her and pointing it directly at Rosa’s chest. “Give me the ledger, or I shoot her right now, Vincenzo!”
Vincenzo lunged forward, but Beatrice cocked the gun, freezing him in his tracks.
“I’ll do it!” Beatrice screamed.
“Do it, then,” Rosa said calmly, not flinching away from the barrel of the gun. She looked at Beatrice with pure, unadulterated disgust. “Kill me. It won't change the truth. The ledger you are looking for... it doesn't just contain the names of corrupt politicians.”
Rosa turned her head slowly, looking directly at me.
“It contains the proof of who actually killed Vincenzo’s father,” Rosa said, her words echoing like a gunshot in the silent kitchen.
Beatrice went completely pale.
“My husband didn't die of a heart attack, Beatrice,” Rosa said, turning back to the senator’s wife. “You poisoned him. Fifteen years ago. Because he found out you were secretly funneling money from his accounts to fund your husband’s first political campaign.”
“That’s a lie!” Beatrice screamed, her hand shaking violently on the trigger.
“It is written in his own handwriting,” Rosa said, pointing a trembling finger at the heavy leather book in my hands. “He knew he was dying. He wrote it all down before the poison stopped his heart. He hid the truth to protect the family from a war. But I kept it. I kept it safe.”
Vincenzo stared at his mother, the absolute horror of the revelation hitting him. Beatrice hadn't just murdered his sister. She had murdered his father.
Beatrice let out a guttural scream of absolute fury. She didn't aim at Rosa. She swung the gun toward me, aiming directly at the book in my hands.
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“Kill them all!” Beatrice shrieked to her mercenaries.
But before a single trigger could be pulled, the deafening roar of a police helicopter shook the roof of the safehouse, and the wail of fifty sirens flooded the driveway.
