Chapter 8 - The Final Stand in the Study
They moved through the darkened corridors of the mansion like ghosts. Every shadow was an ally; every creak of the floorboard was information. Marta and Emma remained secured in the panic room, locked behind three feet of reinforced titanium.
Lorenzo and Isabella reached the grand mahogany double doors of the study—the very room where, just hours ago, a three-year-old girl had whispered a secret that had brought an empire crashing down.
Voices drifted from inside.
"...sweep the perimeter again! If they’re in this house, they’re bleeding out!" Kovalev’s voice barked angrily.
Lorenzo exchanged a single, wordless glance with Isabella. She nodded, her fingers sliding the safety off her weapon.
With a brutal kick from his heavy boot, Lorenzo blew the mahogany doors off their hinges, sending them crashing inward across the Persian rug.
Kovalev and his two remaining guards spun around in sheer shock, their rifles swinging toward the entrance. But Lorenzo was already moving, diving into a roll to the left while Isabella dropped to one knee on the right, unleashing a blistering wall of lead.
The first guard took a round to the chest, spinning backward into the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, sending ancient leather-bound volumes raining down like confetti. The second guard tried to level his rifle at Isabella, but Lorenzo’s submachine gun barked twice, dropping the man instantly.
That left Kovalev.
The elite enforcer dropped his empty rifle, his hand flashing toward a ceramic ceramic-blade hidden in his boot. But before he could pull it free, Lorenzo was across the room.
A brutal, bone-crushing left hook sent Kovalev staggering backward into the mahogany desk—the exact desk where Lorenzo had sat when Emma told him his wife was alive. Kovalev crashed over the chair, bleeding from the nose and mouth, gasping for air as Lorenzo planted a heavy boot squarely on his chest.
"You thought you buried us," Lorenzo whispered, leaning down so his face was inches from Kovalev’s terrified eyes. "You thought you could steal my wife, burn my name, and walk away."
Kovalev coughed, spitting blood onto the rug. "The... the board... they'll never stop. Someone else will come for you... Duca..."
"Let them come," Lorenzo said softly. "I'll be waiting."
May you like
He didn't pull the trigger. He signaled to Isabella, who walked over, raised the heavy revolver, and fired a single, clean shot into the floorboards right beside Kovalev's ear.
"Tell the board," Isabella said, her voice dripping with ice, "that the Queen is back."
