Chapter 8 - THE INJECTOR PEN
Vanessa looked like a ghost.
Her expensive dress was torn, her makeup smeared across her tear-stained face. She was holding the second insulin injector pen we had left in the study.
Silas didn’t even hear her approach over the ringing in his ears from the gunfire.
Without a word, Vanessa stepped up behind Silas, jammed the injector pen directly into the side of his neck, and pushed the button.
Silas roared, swatting her away like a fly.
Vanessa crashed onto the concrete floor, the empty pen clattering away.
Silas raised his rifle to shoot her, but the massive, lethal dose of fast-acting insulin—intended for a man twice his size over several days—hit his bloodstream like a freight train.
His eyes rolled back. His knees buckled instantly.
He collapsed onto the floor, his rifle clattering uselessly away, slipping into a profound, immediate hypoglycemic coma.
Luca stared in absolute shock.
I ran back from the elevator shaft, dropping to my knees beside Vanessa. She was shaking violently, crying uncontrollably.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Vanessa sobbed, clutching my hands. “Leo told me if I didn’t kill Luca, he would torture my little sister. He showed me pictures of her apartment. I didn’t have a choice.”
She had escaped the locked room, followed Leo to the warehouse, and finally found her courage.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, checking her pulse. “You stopped him.”
“How touching,” a voice rasped from the shadows.
We turned.
Leo was leaning heavily against a concrete pillar. His face was ashen, his suit ruined by the blood pouring from his neck. But he was holding his pistol, and it was aimed directly at us.
“You ruined everything,” Leo wheezed, his eyes burning with insane hatred.
He raised the gun toward Luca.
Luca stepped in front of me and Vanessa, shielding us with his own body. He had no bullets left. He was completely defenseless.
“Go to hell, Leo,” Luca said steadily.
Leo smiled a bloody, awful smile. His finger tightened on the trigger.
BANG.
The gunshot was deafening.
But Luca didn't fall.
Leo’s eyes widened in shock. The gun slipped from his fingers. He looked down at his own chest.
A massive, dark red stain was spreading across his white dress shirt.
He swayed on his feet, then pitched forward, collapsing face-first onto the concrete. Dead.
I looked past Leo’s body toward the warehouse entrance.
Standing in the doorway, lowering a smoking, double-barreled shotgun, was Valentina.
She had followed us.
She walked slowly into the warehouse, stepping over Leo’s body without a second glance. She walked directly up to Luca.
For a terrifying second, I thought she might raise the shotgun at him.
Instead, she dropped the weapon.
“Where is my son?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“Mom!”
Matteo scrambled down the service ladder and ran across the warehouse floor. Valentina dropped to her knees, catching the boy in her arms, burying her face in his shoulder, sobbing with pure, unadulterated relief.
Luca watched them. The tension finally left his shoulders. He leaned heavily against the iron printing press, sliding down to sit on the floor, completely exhausted.
I walked over and sat beside him.
I opened my medical bag and pulled out a roll of gauze. I took my bleeding, glass-cut hand and let him gently wrap it for me.
“You okay, Nurse?” he asked softly, his voice rough.
“I’m fine,” I breathed, resting my head back against the cold iron. “But I am definitely asking the agency for overtime pay.”
Luca let out a weak, genuine laugh.
The distant wail of police sirens finally grew loud enough to hear over the pouring rain outside.
May you like
“Emma,” Luca said, turning to look at me. The mafia boss mask was gone. He was just a man. A man who had his family, his health, and his life returned to him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Moretti.”
