Chapter 7 - The Final Betrayal
"Did you really think Viktor was the only one sent to finish the job, Sarah?"
The voice belonged to Marcus—my violent, supposedly dead ex-boyfriend. He stepped out of the shadows of the bedroom doorway, looking disheveled, bruised, and high on sheer desperation, holding a firearm pointed straight at my head.
I gasped, stumbling backward against the headboard, shielding Leo with my entire body. "Marcus... how are you alive? Lorenzo's men said—"
"Lorenzo's men are thugs who think they own the city," Marcus snarled, his eyes wild and bloodshot as he advanced into the room. "They captured my associates, but they missed me. And when I found out my worthless ex-girlfriend was shacked up with the biggest billionaire mafia boss in the country, playing mommy to his dying brat... I knew I hit the jackpot."
He waved his gun menacingly. "Get out of the bed. Pack up the baby, the safe codes, whatever cash is in this room. We're walking out of here right now, or I swear to God I'll splatter this kid's brains across the wallpaper before you can blink."
"You wouldn't dare," I whispered, tears of rage and terror stinging my eyes. "He's just an infant!"
"Watch me!" Marcus lunged forward, grabbing my arm and hauling me violently out of the bed. Leo woke up instantly, letting out a piercing, terrified shriek.
The sound of the baby's cry seemed to echo through the entire mansion's intercom system, which happened to be patched directly into Lorenzo’s encrypted command center downstairs.
"Let her go."
The voice echoed from the doorway with the terrifying, sub-zero chill of an avalanche.
Marcus spun around, gun raised.
Lorenzo Rossi stood in the doorway. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket; his white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing scarred, muscular forearms. His dark eyes burned with an absolute, hellish fury that made Marcus instantly pale.
"Drop the weapon," Lorenzo commanded, stepping forward with slow, deliberate strides.
"Stay back!" Marcus shrieked, pressing the barrel of his gun hard against my temple. "One step closer and I blow her head off! I swear to God, Rossi, I'll pull the trigger!"
Lorenzo stopped. He looked at me, his gaze softening for a fraction of a second, before snapping back to Marcus with lethal precision.
"You think you have a hostage," Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm whisper. "You think holding a gun to her head gives you leverage."
"It gives me everything!" Marcus laughed hysterically.
"It gives you thirty seconds to live," Lorenzo corrected smoothly.
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, the entire bedroom window exploded inward in a shower of glittering glass shards. Three red laser dots appeared instantly on Marcus’s chest—snipers positioned on the neighboring rooftop had locked on through the double-paned glass.
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At the exact same moment, Lorenzo moved with lightning-fast, supernatural speed. He lunged across the room, grabbed Marcus’s wrist with a sickening crunch of bone, and twisted it until the pistol clattered harmlessly to the floor.
With a brutal, sweeping kick, Lorenzo sent Marcus crashing through the antique mahogany dressing table, knocking him unconscious before he even hit the floor.
