Chapter 2 - The Red Sovereign
The ride back to the Valtieri estate was a blur of high-speed turns and suffocating tension. Roman drove his armored SUV with a brutal efficiency, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Elena sat in the passenger seat, wrapped in his oversized wool coat, still shivering despite the blasting heater.
"They said they were at your estate," Elena whispered, her voice cracking. "Your sister, Mia..."
"Mia is protected by twenty of my best men," Roman said, though his jaw was clamped so tight it looked ready to shatter. "But if there is a traitor inside my house, numbers won't matter."
He glanced at her. Elena looked so fragile, yet she hadn't broken. Any other woman would have been hysterical. But Elena was analyzing, observing. For three years, he had kept her in the dark to protect her from the filth of his life, but tonight, the filth had come for her anyway. And seeing her terrified had awakened something feral inside him.
When they arrived at the gates of the sprawling Valtieri estate, the iron doors were wide open.
Roman’s breath hitched. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, tearing up the winding driveway. The front lawn, usually pristine and perfectly manicured, was a battlefield. Two black sedans were flipped over, smoke billowing into the night sky. The heavy oak front doors of the mansion were riddled with bullet holes.
"Stay in the car. Lock the doors. If I am not back in five minutes, take the wheel and drive to the safehouse in the valley," Roman commanded, throwing his door open.
"Roman, no! Wait!" Elena cried out, but he was already gone, a specter of vengeance moving into the darkness.
Elena couldn't just sit there. She knew the estate's security codes. She knew where the cameras were routed. She scrambled into the driver's seat and looked at the dashboard monitor, pulling up the estate’s internal security feed.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
The security room had been compromised. Her eyes darted across the multi-screen display. In the grand ballroom, Mia Valtieri, Roman’s eighteen-year-old sister, was tied to a chair. Standing over her was Marco Marcone—the unhinged, psychopathic heir to the rival Marcone syndicate. He held a silver blade against Mia’s throat, laughing as he spoke to someone off-camera.
Elena zoomed in on the blind spot of the ballroom. She saw Roman entering from the terrace, his gun raised, his eyes locked on Marco. But she also saw something Roman couldn't see.
Tucked away in the gallery above the ballroom was a sniper. And he had his crosshairs aimed directly at Roman’s head.
Elena didn't hesitate. She grabbed the vehicle’s integrated megaphone comms system, overriding the ballroom’s PA system—a feature she had personally insisted on installing during the mansion's renovation.
"Roman! Above you! The gallery! Twelve o'clock!" she screamed into the mic.
The sniper fired just as Elena’s voice echoed through the ballroom. Because of her warning, Roman ducked. The bullet grazed his shoulder instead of piercing his skull. Roman spun, firing three blind shots into the gallery. The sniper tumbled over the railing, crashing onto the marble floor below.
But the distraction gave Marco Marcone the upper hand. He grabbed Mia, pulling her up as a human shield, and backed toward the private elevator.
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"Valtieri!" Marco yelled, his face twisted in a manic grin. "You think you won? Look at your phone! Look at what your precious secretary just did!"
HOOK: Roman’s phone buzzed in his pocket. A text message from an unknown number contained a single photo that turned Roman’s world completely upside down—and it pointed directly at Elena.
