Chapter 8 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
The gunshot cracked like thunder.
Alexei staggered backward, his shoulder exploding in red mist. He dropped the lighter, but it splashed harmlessly into a puddle of rainwater, miles from the gasoline.
Chaos erupted.
Dante shoved me violently behind a steel shipping container as the night tore open with automatic gunfire. Sparks flew from the metal as bullets rained down around us. Marco and Dante’s men returned fire with lethal precision, dropping Volkov mercenaries one by one.
Through the deafening roar, I peeked around the corner. Alexei was bleeding heavily, scrambling behind a rusted barrel, yelling desperate orders to his collapsing squad.
In the center of the crossfire, Isabella was thrashing in her chair, weeping in terror.
Dante reloaded his weapon. “Stay down, Mara. Do not move.”
He broke from cover, moving like a phantom through the shadows. He flanked the mercenaries, firing with calculated strikes. Within three minutes, the Volkov forces were decimated. Alexei tried to run toward the docks, but Marco stepped from the shadows and delivered a swift, brutal strike with the butt of his rifle, sending the Russian boss crashing to the concrete, unconscious.
The gunfire ceased. The rain hissed against the hot metal of the containers.
It was over.
Dante lowered his weapon, his chest heaving, and walked toward Isabella. He pulled a knife from his belt and sliced through the ropes binding her wrists.
“Get out of my city,” Dante commanded, looking down at his ex-fiancée. “If I ever see your face again, I won't save you.”
Isabella stumbled forward, rubbing her raw wrists. She looked around at the bodies, at Dante, and then her eyes locked onto me as I stepped out from behind the container.
The terror in her face vanished, replaced by a twisted, bitter hatred.
“You,” Isabella hissed, her voice ragged. “You ruined everything! I was going to be the queen of this city. You stole my crown!”
Before Dante could react, Isabella lunged toward the ground and snatched up a discarded pistol from a fallen mercenary. In one fluid motion, she raised it and aimed directly at my chest.
“Isabella, no!” Dante roared, diving toward me.
A gunshot rang out.
I flinched, closing my eyes, waiting for the burning impact.
But the pain never came.
I opened my eyes. Isabella stood frozen, the gun slipping from her fingers. She looked down in shock at a growing red stain on her stomach. She collapsed to her knees, and then fell forward onto the wet concrete.
Standing ten feet behind her, his gun still smoking, was Marco.
“Nobody points a weapon at the boss’s fiancée,” Marco said coldly, lowering his weapon.
Dante reached me in a second, his hands frantically checking my body for wounds. When he realized I was unharmed, he pulled me against him, burying his face in my neck, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.
When we returned to the safehouse, the storm had finally broken.
I went straight to my father’s shoebox, which Marco had retrieved from the estate. I pulled out the worn gray police jacket and felt along the lining. Near the hem, there was a stiff square. I cut the fabric with a kitchen knife.
It wasn't a tape. It was a sealed envelope.
I opened it and pulled out a stack of glossy photographs. They were high-resolution dashcam stills from twenty years ago. They clearly showed Dante’s father fleeing the crash, but more importantly, they showed Alexei Volkov standing on the bridge, confirming the Russian syndicate had engineered the crash to eliminate the Moretti patriarch.
My father had gathered all the pieces. He had solved his own murder twenty years before it happened.
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I handed the photos to Dante. “It’s over.”
Dante looked at the evidence that would officially dismantle the Volkov family and exonerate my father’s legacy. He looked up at me, his dark eyes filled with an emotion too profound for words.
