Chapter 4 - THE GOLD COAST BLOODBATHThe heavy double doors of the master suite burst open.
Marco, my chief of security—a man I had fed, clothed, and paid three hundred thousand dollars a year—stepped into the room with a silenced pistol drawn. Behind him stood two of my night guards.
"Make it look like a heart attack, boys," Marco was saying as he walked in. "The lady said—"
He stopped dead in his tracks.
I was standing in the middle of the room, tall, broad-shouldered, and soaked in cold sweat, holding a 9mm pointed directly at his chest.
"The lady lied," I said.
Marco’s eyes went wide with sheer terror. He raised his gun, but he was a second too late.
BANG! BANG!
Two shots echoed like thunder in the enclosed room. Marco dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, before crashing face-first onto the expensive rug.
The other two guards tried to raise their weapons, but I didn't give them the chance. I stepped forward, firing with brutal, clinical precision.
BANG! BANG!
The room fell dead silent, save for the smell of spent gunpowder and the rain outside.
Elena covered Lily’s eyes, pressing the child’s face against her hip, but Lily didn't scream. She didn't even flinch. She just held on tight to her mother.
"Julian..." Elena whispered, staring at the bodies.
"They made their choice," I said coldly, walking over to Marco’s body and taking his master keycard and radio. "Vanessa turned my own house against me. But she forgot one thing."
I squeezed the radio button. "All units, this is Moretti. Code Red. Marco is dead. Anyone who takes orders from Vanessa Vale in the next five minutes will join him."
Static crackled over the radio. Then, a voice came through—Dominic, my oldest lieutenant, the man who ran the South Side operations.
"Boss? Is that you? We heard you were in a coma!"
"I’m alive, Dom," I growled into the radio. "Get twenty armed men to the Gold Coast mansion right now. Blockade the streets. No one leaves. Especially not my fiancée."
"On our way, Boss. Ten minutes."
I clipped the radio to my robe, checked the magazine on my pistol, and turned to Elena and Lily.
"We need to get to the basement garage," I said. "The elevator is compromised. We take the servant stairs."
"Is she going to try to kill us?" Lily asked, looking up at me.
I knelt down in front of the little girl, reaching out to gently touch her chin—the exact twin of my own.
"No, little one," I said, my voice softening for the first time in years. "She’s going to try to run. But nobody steals from a Moretti and gets away with it."
We moved quickly through the dark, quiet corridors of the mansion. The staff had vanished, hiding in their rooms as the reality of a mob war inside the house set in.
As we reached the top of the marble staircase leading down to the main foyer, I saw her.
Vanessa was in the grand entrance hall, wearing a long trench coat over her designer clothes, clutching a heavy leather duffel bag packed with cash and bearer bonds from my private safe. Standing beside her were three heavily armed mercenaries—not my men, but outside hires she must have brought in under the guise of 'private medical security.'
"Where is Marco?" Vanessa was demanding, looking nervously at her watch. "He was supposed to have the car ready!"
"Marco is indisposed," I called down from the balcony.
Vanessa whipped around, her face turning pale as paper. The sight of me—standing strong, holding a gun, fully conscious—sent a shockwave through her.
"How... how are you standing?!" she shrieked, backing away toward her guards. "You should be dead! The dose was enough to kill an elephant!"
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"You should have bought better poison, Vanessa," I said, descending the stairs one step at a time, my pistol trained on the lead mercenary. "And you definitely should have checked who my housekeeper was."
"Kill him!" Vanessa screamed at her mercenaries, dropping her bag. "Kill him now and I’ll double your pay!"
