Chapter 7
We were supposed to stay at the estate.
That was the plan.
Children upstairs.
Guards on every door.
Agent Reeves at the ferry terminal.
Dominic waiting for clearance.
Me holding Lily until the nightmare ended.
Plans had not done much for us so far.
Thirty minutes after the FBI left, the power went out.
Every light in the private residence died at once.
The security screens went black.
Ethan made a small sound.
Lily clung to me.
Rosa whispered a prayer.
Then the backup generators kicked in.
But not all the lights returned.
Only the emergency strips along the floor.
Red.
Low.
Wrong.
Marco’s voice came through Dominic’s radio.
“Boss, security system is cycling. Doors locked but cameras are down on the west wing.”
Dominic stood slowly.
“That’s not a malfunction.”
A guard outside the door shouted.
Then something heavy hit the wall.
Dominic pulled Ethan behind him.
I grabbed Lily and backed toward the bedroom.
The door burst open.
One guard stumbled inside, bleeding from the forehead.
Behind him came two masked men.
Everything happened too fast.
Dominic moved like the stories about him were not stories at all.
He knocked the first man into the wall and took his weapon before I could even scream.
Marco appeared from the side hallway and tackled the second.
Rosa shoved Ethan behind the sofa.
I ran with Lily toward the bedroom.
A third man came through the balcony doors.
The balcony.
Three floors up.
My mind could not make sense of it.
He had climbed from the terrace roof.
He lunged for Lily.
I turned my body so hard my shoulder hit the wall.
He grabbed my hair.
Pain exploded across my scalp.
Lily screamed.
I kicked backward and felt my heel connect with his knee.
He cursed.
Dominic shouted my name.
The man pulled a knife.
Then Ethan threw a marble bookend at his head.
It struck hard.
The man staggered.
Rosa swung a lamp with both hands and smashed it across his face.
He dropped.
I stared at her.
She was breathing hard, silver hair falling loose.
“No one touches the babies,” she snapped.
For one wild second, I loved her.
Dominic crossed the room and pulled the attacker away from us.
“Who sent you?” he demanded.
The man spat blood.
Dominic pressed the man’s own knife against the floor beside his face.
“Wrong answer.”
“Falcone,” the man gasped.
Dominic leaned closer.
“Isabella?”
The man went silent.
That silence was answer enough.
Marco cuffed him.
Dominic turned toward me.
“Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, though my scalp burned and my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold Lily.
Ethan stood beside the sofa, white as paper.
Dominic crossed to him.
“You did good.”
Ethan looked at the bookend on the floor.
“I hit him.”
“You protected Lily.”
Ethan began to cry.
Dominic pulled him close.
The radio crackled.
Agent Reeves.
“Moretti, we have movement at the terminal. Isabella is here. Sofia confirmed alive. Vincent wounded but breathing. We are preparing entry.”
Dominic grabbed the radio.
“My estate was hit.”
A pause.
“How many?”
“Three inside. Likely diversion.”
Reeves swore softly.
“Then they know we’re here.”
The radio erupted with distant shouting.
Then gunfire.
Ethan screamed, “Sofia!”
Dominic’s face went gray.
“Reeves?”
No answer.
“Reeves!”
Static.
Marco looked toward the door.
“We need to go.”
Dominic shook his head.
“Children stay.”
I stepped forward.
“You can’t leave them here. They just got inside.”
“We secure another room.”
“No. You said anyone who wants Lily goes through you. If you leave, that’s not true anymore.”
His eyes locked on mine.
“I cannot take your daughter toward gunfire.”
“And I cannot stay in a house that was just breached.”
Marco said, “Boss, the armored SUV can carry all of them. We move to the federal staging point, not inside the terminal.”
Dominic looked torn.
For the first time, I saw what power cost him.
Every choice was a way to fail someone.
Ethan grabbed his sleeve.
“I’m going where you go.”
“No.”
“If Sofia is scared, I want to be close.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Ethan.”
“You promised you’d come back.”
“I will.”
“Then let me be somewhere I can see you come back.”
Those words broke something in the room.
Dominic nodded once.
“Staging point only.”
We moved fast.
Rosa wrapped Lily in a coat.
I carried her down the back stairs while Dominic carried Ethan, even though Ethan insisted he could walk.
Outside, the morning sky was pale and cruel.
The armored SUV waited near the service entrance.
Marco drove.
Dominic sat in front.
Rosa, the children, and I sat in back.
The gates opened.
For the first time since I began working at the Moretti estate, I left not as staff at the end of a shift, but as someone being protected.
Or hunted.
Maybe both.
The city blurred past.
Sirens screamed somewhere ahead.
Dominic spoke into three phones, calm and terrifying.
I held Lily with one arm and Ethan’s hand with the other.
He did not pull away.
At the federal staging point, black vehicles lined the street near the water.
Agents moved behind barriers.
The old ferry terminal stood beyond them, red brick against the gray sky.
A bell tower rose behind it.
Lily pointed.
“Ding-dong.”
My throat tightened.
Agent Reeves met us at the SUV, wearing a vest now.
Her face was hard.
“We have Sofia in the east room. Isabella has her. Falcone’s men are using her as a shield.”
Dominic’s face emptied.
“And Vincent?”
“Alive. Badly beaten.”
“Falcone?”
“Inside.”
Then a sound came from the terminal speakers.
A woman’s voice.
Amplified.
Shaking but cruel.
“Dominic!”
Isabella.
Ethan leaned into me.
Dominic stepped toward the barrier.
Agent Reeves grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
Isabella’s voice rang out again.
“You want the girl? Send in Anna Bennett.”
My heart stopped.
Dominic turned slowly toward me.
The whole world narrowed.
“Why me?” I whispered.
The speaker crackled.
May you like
Isabella laughed.
“Because the child trusts her. And because I want Dominic to watch another mother choose.”
