Chapter 4 - The Traitor in the Shadows
“Drop the gun, Marco,” I commanded, my voice dropping into an arctic register that could freeze blood.
I didn't panic. Panic was for amateurs. As the head of the Rossi syndicate, I had faced betrayal before, but never like this—never from the man who had stood beside me in shootouts, held my coat at funerals, and poured my drinks.
Marco didn't lower his weapon. In fact, the barrel drifted slightly, aligning dead center with my chest.
“I can't do that, Lorenzo,” Marco said, dropping the formal title he had used out of respect for over a decade. A cruel, mocking smile touched his lips. “You were a brilliant boss when you were focused on blood and territory. But you went soft the day you married that Milanese girl. You stopped seeing the board. You let sentimentality blind you.”
Clara let out a sharp gasp, pulling infant Leo tighter against her shoulder, shielding him with her body.
“You killed her,” I whispered, standing up slowly from my crouch, my hand resting casually near my hidden holster. “You and Dr. Vance. You murdered Isabella because she found the ledger detailing the syndicate kickbacks.”
“She was a liability,” Marco replied flatly, his eyes hard as flint. “She started asking questions about where the European shipping revenue was vanishing to. Dr. Vance gave her an injection during labor that stopped her heart in ten seconds flat. Clean. Quiet. We told you it was a tragic postpartum complication. And you believed it like a grieving fool.”
Rage—hot, violent, and consuming—flared through my veins. Every muscle in my body coiled for a strike.
“And my son?” I snarled. “Did you order Dr. Vance to starve him too? Was Leo supposed to be the next tragic casualty of the Rossi household so you could seize control of the board?”
Marco’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. A flicker of genuine unease crossed his face. “We didn't touch the boy. Dr. Vance tried every formula on the market. The kid just had a failure-to-thrive condition. We were going to institutionalize him quietly next week. But then she had to sneak in here and ruin everything.”
He shifted his stance, his grip tightening on the pistol. “I’m sorry, Lorenzo. I really am. But you built an empire on absolute loyalty, and you taught me that loose ends must be cut. Say goodbye to your new wet nurse... and your son.”
He started to squeeze the trigger.
In that split second, human reaction was too slow. But mafia training—years of surviving ambushes, hit squads, and betrayal—took over.
I didn't draw my gun at Marco. I drew it and fired through the glass divider of the high-tech incubator control console right beside him.
Bang!
The heavy bullet shattered the master electrical panel, plunging the hallway and half the nursery into pitch-black emergency lighting. Red strobe lights began to flash frantically across the walls, wailing sirens echoing through the ventilation shafts.
Marco cursed in the dark, firing blindly into the nursery.
Pop-pop-pop!
Bullets chewed through the drywall inches above my head. I dove to the floor, rolling behind the reinforced steel frame of Leo’s crib, shielding Clara and the baby with my own body.
“Clara, stay down!” I hissed in her ear.
“He’s going to kill us!” she sobbed, holding Leo tight.
“Not while I’m breathing,” I growled.
I popped up from behind the steel frame, tracking the muzzle flash of Marco’s gun in the pulsing red strobe light. I didn't aim to kill him—not yet. I needed answers about the rest of the council.
Crack!
My bullet caught Marco squarely in his right shoulder. He roared in agony, dropping his Sig Sauer as it clattered across the polished marble floor. He staggered backward into the hallway, clutching his bleeding arm, and sprinted toward the emergency stairwell.
“Boss!” Viktor, my head of outer perimeter security, shouted over the wailing sirens as he rushed into the hallway with four armed guards in tactical gear. “We heard shots! What happened?!”
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“Marco is a traitor!” I roared, stepping out of the nursery with Leo safely handed off to a weeping Clara. I pointed down the dark hallway. “Lock down every exit in this estate! No vehicles leave the grounds, no phones connect to the outside world, and find Dr. Vance before he makes it to the helipad!”
Viktor’s eyes widened in shock, but his combat training instantly took over. “By morning, Boss, nobody leaves alive.”
