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Headline: "He Was Left for Dead Upstairs, But When the Doors Opened, the Traitors Froze!" / Chapter 4 / 6

Chapter 4 - A CITY OF ASH

Headline: "The Mansion Becomes a War Zone! The Paralyzed Boss Faces an Army!"Celeste’s scream was a pre-arranged signal.

From the dark lawns surrounding the Rinaldi mansion, headlights flashed. The roar of heavily modified engines tore through the night air as three black SUVs crashed through the iron gates of the estate. These weren't Marco’s men; these were the mercenaries hired by the rival Bratva syndicate—the Russians who had been waiting for Marco to clear the way.

Gunfire shattered the remaining windows of the dining room. Heavy-caliber rounds chewed through the plaster, turning the elegant walls into Swiss cheese.

"Down!" Leo shouted, throwing himself over the table and returning fire through the broken windows with an assault rifle.

Elena moved with blinding speed. She didn't panic. She grabbed the handles of Matteo’s wheelchair, tilting it backward slightly to clear a fallen beam, and violently pulled him back toward the service elevator.

"We need to get you upstairs, sir! The safe room is the only secure location!" Elena yelled over the deafening roar of automatic gunfire.

"No," Matteo snarled, his hands gripping the armrests so hard his knuckles turned white. "If I hide upstairs again, I die up there. We go to the basement. The armory."

"The elevator is cut off!" Leo yelled from the frontline, his shoulder bleeding from a graze. "They’re entering through the foyer!"

"Then we use the stairs," Matteo said, looking directly at Elena.

Elena looked at the grand, sweeping marble staircase. It was thirty steps of steep, unforgiving stone. For a man who couldn't move his legs, it was an impossible barrier.

"You told me my hands work," Matteo said, his eyes burning into hers. "You told me my mind works. Now prove you weren't just giving me a pep talk to earn your salary."

Elena didn't hesitate. She unbuckled the heavy leather straps from his wheelchair. "Leo! Cover the stairs! We have two minutes!"

With a strength that defied her slender frame, Elena hauled Matteo out of the chair. He collapsed against her, his useless legs dragging on the marble floor. But his arms wrapped around her neck, anchoring him. Together, they began to move toward the basement door hidden behind the kitchen pantry.

Outside, the mansion was being systematically torn apart. Grenades exploded in the courtyard, shattering the stone statues of Matteo’s ancestors. The Rinaldi empire was being burned to the ground.

As they reached the heavy steel door of the basement, a shadow fell over them.

One of the Russian mercenaries, wearing a tactical mask and holding a shotgun, stepped out from the smoke of the kitchen. He raised the barrel, aiming directly at Matteo’s head.

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

"The great Matteo Rinaldi," the mercenary sneered in a thick accent. "Crawling like a dog."

The Cliffhanger: Matteo didn't flinch. Instead, he reached into Elena’s apron, pulled out her spare tactical knife, and with a terrifying burst of upper-body strength, launched himself forward off her shoulders, driving the blade straight into the mercenary’s throat. But as they both fell to the floor, the steel door behind them began to hiss. Someone was already inside the armory.

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