Chapter 4 - THE USURPER’S TRAP
Chaos erupted in a fraction of a second.
Before Frank could reach me, the unfamiliar guards raised their weapons. They weren't aiming at Leo. They were aiming directly at my guards by the door.
Bang!
A silenced gunshot echoed through the grand dining room. One of my loyal security men spun and collapsed onto the marble floor, blood blossoming across his black suit.
“Ambush!” a guard roared, drawing his weapon, but it was already too late.
The room dissolved into a storm of shouting, flashing muzzle fire, and shattering crystal. My remaining guards scrambled for cover behind the heavy dining table and the library shelves, returning fire with frantic precision.
“Get down!” Leo shouted, lunging forward with shocking speed. He grabbed the back of my jacket and slammed me to the floor behind the mahogany desk just as a volley of bullets splintered the wood above our heads.
Dust and splinters rained down on my hair. I pulled my own 9mm from my shoulder holster, cocking it with a sharp, metallic click.
“Victoria!” I roared over the deafening clatter of gunfire.
Through a gap in the desk’s carved legs, I saw her. She wasn't cowering. She was walking calmly toward the double doors, flanked by the men in black armbands, her crimson dress sweeping across the blood-spattered floor like a queen inspecting her troops.
“Secure the exits!” Victoria commanded, her voice cutting through the chaos with absolute authority. “Leave the old man and the boy for the cleanup crew! The board of directors is waiting at the downtown plaza to ratify my emergency succession!”
“You won't make it out of this estate, Victoria!” I yelled, firing two rapid shots toward the door. One of the black-armored guards took a round to the shoulder and dropped, but Victoria didn't even flinch. She simply stepped over him and walked out into the hallway, slamming the heavy doors shut behind her.
Click. Click.
The sound of automated deadbolts sliding into place echoed through the wood. She had locked us inside.
“Frank!” I yelled across the room, reloading my weapon. “Are you hit?”
Frank rolled out from behind a shattered credenza, breathing heavily, clutching a graze on his forearm. “I’m alive, Boss! But they jammed the security grid! The interior comms are dead, and the steel shutters are coming down on the windows!”
True to his word, a heavy, deafening metallic clank reverberated through the outer walls as the mansion’s emergency storm shutters dropped into place, plunging the dining room into a dim, shadow-filled twilight lit only by the flickering chandelier overhead.
Beside me, Leo crouched low, his eyes darting around the room, assessing the tactical situation with a cold, ruthless calculation that looked terrifyingly familiar. He checked the magazine of a pistol he had pulled from his own holster.
“Your wife has been planning this for months,” Leo said, his voice completely steady despite the ringing gunfire that had just ceased outside the doors. “The men in black armbands—they’re mercenaries from the Syndicate out of Detroit. She didn't just want your empire, Anthony. She wanted you erased.”
I looked at my son—the boy I had mourned for twenty years, the boy whose life had been stolen by the very woman I had shared a bed with. A dark, boiling rage rose up from the depths of my chest, pushing past the shock, past the betrayal, transforming into something pure and lethal.
“She thinks she won,” I said, wiping a streak of dust from my cheek. I looked at Frank, then at Leo. “She thinks because she locked the doors, she owns the house.”
Frank managed a grim, blood-stained smile. “You built this house, Boss. Every brick of it.”
“And I know every secret passage built into its walls,” I finished, standing up from behind the desk.
My mother, Eleanor, was huddled near the corner of the room, trembling. Leo immediately moved to her, checking her over. “Are you hurt, Grandma?” he asked softly, using a tone of gentleness that contrasted sharply with the killer standing beside him.
Eleanor shook her head, clutching his arm. “I’m fine, boy. Just get us out of here. That woman is a demon.”
“She’s right,” Frank said, scrambling over to the grand fireplace. He grabbed the heavy brass poker and jammed it into the side panel of the carved stone mantelpiece. With a sharp twist, a hidden spring gave way, and a narrow, dark opening slid backward into the wall. “The old bootlegger’s chute. It leads down to the wine cellar and straight out to the boathouse garage.”
I looked at Leo. The hostility in his eyes had faded slightly, replaced by a tense, unspoken understanding. We were both Morettis. We were both survivors of Victoria’s web.
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“You lead, Frank,” I ordered, cocking my gun. I looked at Leo. “You stay close to me. We have a lot of talking to do, son. But right now… we have a traitor to hunt.”
Leo gripped his pistol tighter, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. “Lead the way, old man. Let’s go crash your wife’s coronation.”
