flash
The kitchen doors swung shut behind Claire, cutting off the remaining echoes of Madison Cole’s laughter. The heavy scent of garlic, rosemary, and olive oil did nothing to mask the cloying, sticky stench of cola dripping from her hair. / Chapter 8 / 10

Chapter 8 - The Price of a Saint

The glass didn't shatter—it hissed.

A high-velocity sniper round tore through the double-paned reinforced window, missing Claire’s shoulder by a mere two inches and embedding itself into the mahogany kitchen island behind her. The espresso cups shattered on the floor, hot liquid mixing with the dark marble.

"Get down!" Gabriel roared, throwing his entire weight over Claire as they slammed onto the floor.

Outside, the sound of screeching tires echoed from the street below. Gabriel’s private security detail inside the building was already reacting, the sound of heavy gunfire erupting from the lobby elevator banks. Elena wasn't just trying to scare them; she was launching a full-scale assault on the Moretti stronghold.

"Viktor! Lockdown protocol! Now!" Gabriel shouted into his earpiece, dragging Claire toward the panic room concealed behind the library bookshelf.

Claire’s heart hammered against her ribs, but she didn't scream. She looked at the blood on Gabriel’s cheek—a small scratch from a flying glass shard. She reached up, her fingers steady despite the chaos, wiping the blood away.

"I told you, Gabriel," she whispered as the heavy steel door of the panic room began to slide shut. "Violence only breeds more violence."

"This isn't about my choices, Claire! This is about who I am!" Gabriel slammed his hand against the wall. "Elena wants the throne. She thinks by breaking you, she breaks me."

"Then don't let her see you broken," Claire said, standing up straight inside the safe room. She looked at the monitors displaying the security feeds of the building. Men in black tactical gear were flooding the lobby. But Claire’s eyes weren't on the gunmen. They were on a specific delivery van parked in the blind spot of the courtyard.

She recognized the logo on the side of the van: Bellanova’s Italian Kitchen.

"Gabriel," Claire called out, her voice sharp. "Look at camera four. That's Marco’s catering van. Why would Marco be here during a lockdown?"

Gabriel lunged toward the monitors. His eyes went wide. Marco wasn't just a chef; his family had been loyal to the Moretti family for thirty years. But on the screen, Marco was being held at gunpoint by a man wearing a white orchid pin on his lapel.

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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...

And in Marco’s hand was a remote detonator.

"They aren't trying to get in, Claire," Gabriel realized, horror washing over his face. "They’ve rigged the structural pillars in the basement. They're going to drop the whole building."

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