Chapter 5 - THE DEVIL'S BUNKER
The air in the subterranean tunnels was cold and smelled of damp earth and old concrete. Emergency strip lights flickered to life, illuminating the path to the panic room—a bunker built to withstand a nuclear blast, stocked with enough weapons to arm a small militia.
Serafina was shaking uncontrollably, her grip on Mia so tight her knuckles were white. The little girl was crying silently, her tears leaving clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
"You're safe here," I said, my voice softer than it had been in years. I keyed the code into the vault door, and it hissed open.
Inside, banks of monitors displayed the security feeds from the estate. The mansion was in ruins, but Marco's men were finally gaining the upper hand. The local police, undoubtedly paid off by Carlo to look the other way, were nowhere to be seen.
I began stripping off my suit jacket, revealing the blood soaking through my white shirt from a graze on my shoulder. Serafina gasped, setting Mia down on a cot and rushing toward me.
"You're hurt," she said, her hands hovering over the wound.
"It's nothing. A scratch."
"Sit down, Lorenzo," she ordered, her voice suddenly firm, echoing the brave woman who had dragged me from the fire fifteen years ago. She found the first-aid kit on the wall and began cleaning the wound. Her touch was gentle, yet steady.
"Why did you keep the pendant?" I asked, watching her face as she worked.
She paused, her eyes meeting mine. "It was the only proof I had that what I saw was real. That I wasn't crazy. I knew one day, the man who survived that fire would need to know the truth. I just... I didn't think I would have a child to protect when that day came."
"You shouldn't have come to my house to work as a maid, Serafina. It was a death sentence."
"I was running out of money, and Carlo's men were getting closer," she confessed. "The safest place I could think of was right under the nose of the man they feared most. I thought I could hide in plain sight. I didn't plan on Renata figuring it out."
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I looked at Mia, who was watching us with wide, innocent eyes. I had spent fifteen years building an empire of blood and fear to avenge a family I thought was destroyed by an external enemy. Now, the enemy was my own blood.
"Rest," I told her, standing up and loading a fresh magazine into my weapon. "I have a phone call to make."
