Chapter 6 - The Siege of the Villa
The panic room was a steel-reinforced vault equipped with security monitors displaying live feeds from across the estate.
Emma sat quietly in the corner, clutching her rag doll, while I stood glued to the monitors. I watched in horror as Lorenzo Romano and six armed mercenaries moved through the villa’s ground floor, firing at Damiano’s men.
Damiano moved through his own home like a phantom. He utilized hidden passages, taking down the mercenaries one by one with terrifying precision. He wasn't just defending a territory; he was defending his home, his love, and his child.
On the main monitor, I watched as Damiano cornered Lorenzo in the central atrium. Lorenzo was wounded, his arm bleeding, but he held a heavy grenade in his hand, his face twisted in a psychotic grin.
"If I'm going down, Moretti, I'm taking your whole paradise with me!" Lorenzo screamed over the intercom system.
My breath hitched in my throat. Lorenzo was standing directly beneath the central support pillar of the west wing—the very section that held the panic room. If he detonated that military-grade explosive, the entire ceiling would collapse on us.
I looked at the control panel of the panic room. Beside the door lock was a secondary button labeled: External Ventilation Purge.
I remembered what Damiano had shown me three days ago: the villa was equipped with a non-lethal neuro-toxin gas system designed to instantly incapacitate intruders in the atrium in case of an overflow breach.
May you like
"Mommy?" Emma asked softly.
"Stay here, baby," I said, my voice steadying with sudden, fierce courage. I pressed the purge override, typing in the code Damiano had made me memorize: E-M-M-A-1-0-2-8.
