Chapter 9 - The Final Threat
Peace, in the underworld, was never permanent. It was merely the quiet between storms.
Three weeks had passed since the custody hearing. Sarah and Lily were now permanent residents of the Moretti estate, though Sarah insisted on maintaining her independence, managing the philanthropic foundation Julian had recently set up to help single mothers in Chicago. Leo was growing rapidly, sleeping through the night without a single whimper, and Julian... Julian was smiling. Real, genuine smiles that his associates had never seen in their lives.
Until the night of December twenty-first.
It was past midnight when the estate’s silent alarm system triggered—not the perimeter lasers, but the internal panic room circuit.
Sarah woke up instantly to the sound of muffled shouting echoing from the grand hallway outside her bedroom. Before she could sit up, the door burst open.
Julian stood there, his shirt half-unbuttoned, holding a suppressed automatic pistol in his right hand. His face was a mask of cold, lethal fury.
"Get in the closet," Julian commanded, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the reinforced walk-in safe behind the mahogany wardrobe.
"Julian, what's happening?" Sarah panicked, her eyes wide with terror as she clutched her robe around her. "Where’s Lily?"
"Marco has Lily and Leo in the subterranean shelter," Julian said rapidly, pushing her inside the safe and setting the heavy steel combination dial. "A rival faction from the Outfit made a play. They breached the western gate."
"I'm not staying in here while you go out there!" Sarah cried, trying to push past him.
Julian grabbed her face with both hands, his dark eyes burning with fierce, protective devotion. "Listen to me, Sarah. If I don't come back, the combination to this safe is on the back of the family portrait in the library. Everything I own is legally transferred to your name. You take my children, and you vanish."
Before she could answer, Julian slammed the steel door shut. The heavy locking mechanism clicked into place, plunging her into total, suffocating darkness.
May you like
Outside, the muffled pop of suppressed gunfire echoed through the mansion. Glass shattered. Shouts rang out in Italian and English. Then came a series of heavy thuds, followed by an eerie, deafening silence.
Sarah pressed her ear against the cold steel of the vault door, her breath coming in ragged gasps, praying to a God she hadn't spoken to in years. Please. Please don't let him die.
