Chapter 4 - AMBUSH AT THE MANOR“You brought war to my front door. You forgot that I am the war.”“Stay in this room and lock the door!” I ordered Elena, standing up instantly. I pulled my custom matte-black 9mm pistol from my shoulder holster and racked the slide with a crisp, lethal sound.

Nora looked up from the bed, her small eyes wide with fear, but she didn't cry. “Mr. Luca… are you going to fight the bad men?”

I looked at the little girl who had tried to save her mother with a tub of freezing water.

“I’m going to make sure the bad men never scare you again, little one,” I swore.

I stepped out into the hallway as the heavy glass windows of the grand foyer shattered down below. Automated gunfire erupted through the house. Harland had sold out my estate’s layout and security bypass codes to my arch-rivals, the Scarlatti Syndicate—the very syndicate that controlled the city's dark underbelly before I took over.

I moved through the upper shadows like a phantom. Down in the grand foyer, ten heavily armed mercenary thugs stepped over the broken glass, led by Harland, who was holding a submachine gun with a psychotic grin on his face.

“Find the girl!” Harland screamed to his men. “And find Luca! The Scarlatti family is paying ten million dollars for his head, and another five million for the maid and her child! Leave no witnesses!”

They wanted Nora and Elena dead to eliminate any ties, and they wanted me gone to take back the city.

“You always were cheap, Harland,” my voice boomed from the darkness above the grand staircase.

The thugs spun around, raising their rifles, but I was already moving.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three precise shots caught the lead mercenaries in the head before they could pull their triggers. They crumpled to the marble floor like ragdolls. I dropped from the second-floor balcony, landing gracefully in the center of the foyer like a storm of lead and fury.

I moved with ruthless efficiency. Every shot I fired found its mark. The sound of gunfire, shattering marble, and screaming filled the opulent hall. Harland panicked, dropping his gun and sprinting back toward the shattered front glass doors.

“Not this time, you rat!” I roared, firing a single round through his right calf.

Harland shrieked in agony, collapsing onto the glass-strewn driveway. I walked out into the cool rain, grabbing him by his hair and dragging him back into the house by his neck.

“Please! Luca! The Scarlattis forced me!” Harland begged, blood pouring from his leg. “They knew about Elena! They ordered me to manipulate her!”

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“Who ordered you?” I slammed him against a marble pillar. “Who gave the order twenty years ago to set that fire, Harland? TALK!”

Harland coughed up blood, laughing maniacally through his pain. “You think your mother died because of a butler? You blind fool! The fire wasn't meant to kill your mother… IT WAS MEANT TO KILL YOU!”