Chapter 7 - The Silence Shatters
From the dark corridor of the study, 140 pounds of pure black muscle launched into the dining room like a cannonball.
Max didn't bark. He didn't growl. He was a silent shadow of death.
He struck Gianni before the enforcer could even twitch his trigger finger. Max’s massive jaws clamped onto Gianni’s throat, the sheer kinetic force of the impact slamming the killer back against the wall with enough power to shatter the drywall.
Gianni dropped his gun, thrashing frantically, but Max held on, his broad chest pinning the man to the floor.
"Shoot the dog!" Isabella screamed, leaping up from her chair.
The three remaining gunmen spun around, raising their weapons toward Max—but they were already too late.
The floor-to-ceiling dining room windows exploded inward as Marco and four of my top soldiers breached the room from the garden, weapons drawn and fitted with suppressors.
The room erupted into a flurry of silenced gunfire. Pfft-pfft-pfft.
The three Falcone shooters dropped to the hardwood floor within three seconds, their bodies limp before they even realized they were under attack.
Gianni went still beneath Max’s paws. Max released his grip, stepped over the dead enforcer, and walked slowly back to my side, sitting down beside my chair. His coat was flecked with blood, his amber eyes burning with intense adrenaline, but he remained completely, terrifyingly silent.
Isabella stood frozen at the head of the table, her face as pale as a bedsheet. Her wine glass slipped from her fingers, shattering on the floor, spilling deep red liquid across her white leather shoes.
"Marco," I said, standing up calmly and adjusting my cardigan. "Clean up this mess. Take the bodies to the cement plant."
"Yes, Boss," Marco nodded, his men instantly moving to drag the bodies out the rear doors.
I walked around the table until I was standing two feet from my wife.
Isabella took a step back, her back hitting the sideboard, her breathing ragged and terrified. "Alessandro... please..."
"No more acting, Isabella," I said softly, pulling the suppressed Beretta from my shoulder holster and setting it quietly on the dining table between us. "The play is over."
She looked at the gun, then at me, her eyes wide with frantic, survivalist energy. "You won't kill me. I'm the mother of your children. Mia and Enzo—"
"Mia and Enzo are safe," I interrupted. "They are with my sister. And tomorrow, they are flying to a private estate in Switzerland, where they will be raised away from blood, away from poisons, and away from the Falcone family."
"You can't take them from me!" she shrieked, dropping her mask entirely.
"You tried to murder their father in their own home, Isabella," I said, my voice icy and absolute. "You gave up your right to be their mother the moment you put six drops of foxglove into my food."
May you like
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the territorial transfer documents Dominic Falcone had tried to force on me, and laid them on the table beside the gun.
"Now," I said smoothly. "You are going to make a phone call to your uncle, Dominic."
