Chapter 2 - The Red Mansion
For ten minutes, the only sound was the howling of the Long Island wind against the glass and the shallow, rhythmic breathing of Hunter and Leo beneath the crib.
My mind raced. The security system of this estate was designed by former mossad agents. It required biometric overrides to shut down the main power grid. Only three people had those clearance codes: myself, my head of security Marcus, and my cousin, Marco Rossi, who managed our financial operations from the Manhattan office.
Marcus had been with me for fifteen years. He had taken a bullet for me in Palermo.
Marco, however, had been vocal about his displeasure when Sophia became pregnant. If I died without an heir, the entire Rossi syndicate and its billions in legitimate real estate assets would default to him.
A soft scrape outside the door pulled me from my thoughts.
I raised the gun, aligning the night-vision sights with the center seam of the locked door.
Scratch. Click.
It wasn't a key. It was a lockpick. Someone was bypass-wiring the electronic deadbolt from the corridor wall.
"Hunter," I hissed softly. "Don't make a sound."
She pressed her hand over her own mouth, her eyes locked on me from beneath the crib.
The heavy deadbolt clicked back with a loud, echoing crack. The door slowly swung open, a sliver of silver moonlight from the hallway cutting across the nursery floor.
A tall figure stepped through the threshold, dressed in black tactical gear, a silenced submachine gun held at the low ready. The intruder didn't look toward the crib first; he looked toward the chair where the drugged nurse sat. He raised his weapon to finish her off.
I didn't give him the chance.
I fired twice. The silenced rounds from my Beretta tore into the intruder's chest, the impacts sounding like wet slaps in the quiet room. He grunted, collapsing backward into the hallway, his weapon clattering against the marble floor.
I vaulted over the threshold, grabbing his vest and dragging his bleeding body back into the nursery before closing the door manually. I pinned him to the floor, my knee slamming into his throat as I ripped the black balaclava off his face.
It wasn't one of my guards. It was a mercenary. A hired contractor from the Eastern European outfits my family sometimes clashed with in the docks.
"Who sent you?" I growled, pressing the hot barrel of my gun against his temple. "Speak, or I will make your death take three days."
The man coughed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. He let out a wet, mocking laugh. "Your cousin... sends his... regards, Rossi. The baby... dies tonight. You both do."
Before I could squeeze the trigger, the man's eyes rolled back. He had bitten down on a cyanide capsule sewn into his collar. A professional executioner.
"Lorenzo," Hunter's voice gasped. She had crawled out from under the crib, her eyes fixed on the dead mercenary. "We can't stay here. If they have the security codes, they’ll bypass the elevators and block the stairwells."
She was right. The nursery was a fortress, but it was also a tomb if we were cornered.
"We use the service chute," I said, grabbing a tactical flashlight and a spare magazine from the dead man's vest. "The old laundry lift in the back of the pantry. It drops directly into the basement garage. Can you carry him?"
"I’m not letting him go," Hunter said. She had tied her uniform apron around her torso like a makeshift baby wrap, securing Leo snugly against her chest.
I looked at her—this young woman, a maid who had walked into my home to escape her own abusive past, now standing in the middle of a mafia warzone with my son strapped to her heart.
"If we survive this night, Hunter," I said, looking her dead in the eye, "your life changes forever. I promise you that."
May you like
"Just get us out of here, Mr. Rossi," she said quietly.
I opened the nursery door, stepping out into the dark, blood-splattered hallway of my ancestral home. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and gunpowder. The battle for the Rossi empire had begun.
