Chapter 3 - Blood and EspressoChaos erupted in a fraction of a second.
The upscale Italian restaurant transformed from a romantic dining room into a war zone. Customers dived under tables, crystal wine glasses shattered against the tile floor, and the sharp, terrifying pop of a silenced pistol echoed off the vaulted ceilings.
"Get down!" the mafia boss roared.
In one fluid, terrifying movement, he grabbed my waist, yanking me—and the baby—behind the heavy mahogany bar just as a hail of bullets chewed through the wall where we had been standing. Shrapnel rained down on us. My ears were ringing, my heart threatening to burst right out of my ribs, but through it all, the baby didn't cry. He stayed glued to my chest, his tiny hand patting my shoulder as if comforting me.
"Mara," the boss said, his face inches from mine, completely devoid of panic, radiating a cold, calculated fury. "Can you shoot a gun?"
"No! Are you insane?" I yelled over the deafening crack of return fire.
"Then hold my son like your life depends on it—because it does."
He pulled a heavy, matte-black Sig Sauer from a shoulder holster with his free hand, checking the magazine with practiced, deadly ease. The dragon tattoo on his knuckles flexed, catching the strobe of emergency lights filtering through the shattered windows.
Two masked men burst around the corner of the bar, weapons raised.
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I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the impact of a bullet. But the boss moved faster than humanly possible. Two muffled thuds split the air. When I opened my eyes, the intruders were collapsing to the floor, lifeless.
The boss looked down at me, his dark eyes burning with an intensity that paralyzed me. "My name is Dante Moretti," he whispered, wiping a speck of glass from the baby's blanket. "And those men didn't come here to kill me, Mara. They came to finish what they started with you two years ago."
