Chapter 28 - The Poisoned Treaty
The words hung in the air like a sudden drop in cabin pressure.
Dante didn't turn around. His instincts, honed by a thousand betrayals, reacted instantly. He lunged sideways, sweeping Clara behind his body just as Marco—his loyal lieutenant of twelve years, the boy he had pulled from the gutters of Brooklyn—drew a silenced ceramic pistol from inside his tailored jacket.
*Pfft! Pfft!*
Two suppressed rounds ripped through the air.
Julian let out a sickening gasp as the first bullet tore through the battery of his portable oxygen concentrator, igniting the compressed gas in a miniature, blinding burst of flame. The second bullet tore into Dante’s left shoulder, reopening the freshly stitched wound from the pine forest.
"Marco!" Dante roared, blood spraying from his lips as he hit the marble floor, dragging Clara down beneath him.
The chamber erupted into absolute pandemonium. The capos scrambled for the emergency exits, overturning chairs and screaming for their bodyguards as the lights in the subterranean vault abruptly died, plunging the entire room into pitch-black chaos.
Emergency red strobe lights flickered to life seconds later, painting the carnage in hellish crimson pulses.
Marco was already moving toward the service elevator, stepping over the burning wreckage of Julian's wheelchair. His eyes were cold, dead, devoid of the brotherhood that had bound him to Dante for over a decade.
"I’m sorry, Boss," Marco's voice echoed through the red-lit strobe. "The Serrano family died with Armando. You forgot who you were the second you brought that golden-haired witch into the penthouse!"
"Marco, stop!" Clara screamed, scrambling out from under Dante. Her hands were covered in Dante’s warm, sticky blood. Dante was gasping, fighting the shock of the point-blank shot, his fingers clawing at the marble as he tried to lift his weapon.
"He doesn't love you, Clara!" Marco sneered, backing into the elevator cage. "Armando knew! Armando left orders in his will: if Dante ever discovered the Bellandi bloodline, the Serrano legacy was to be cleansed! I'm just executing the will!"
Marco slammed the elevator grate shut and severed the control panel with two gunshots, ascending toward street level before Dante could take aim.
"Dante! Dante, look at me!" Clara wept, dropping to her knees, tearing the hem of her golden silk gown to press it against his shoulder wound. "Stay with me! You survived five years without me, you don't get to die the day I take the throne!"
Dante grabbed her wrist, his grip surprisingly ferocious, his silver eyes blazing with a feral, terrifying will to live.
"My father..." Dante coughed, spitting dark blood onto her gold silk. "Julian..."
Clara spun around. Julian lay on the marble floor ten feet away, his chest heaving, his face blackened by the small oxygen explosion. He was clinging to the ivory ledger, his scarred fingers trembling as he tapped on the back cover.
Clara scrambled to her father’s side, lifting his head into her lap. "Dad... Dad, hold on, the paramedics are on their way—"
"No... time," Julian choked out, his vision clouding. With his dying strength, he pried open the false back of the ivory ledger, revealing a miniature silver flash drive and a rusted iron signet ring. "Armando... didn't act alone. Marco... is Armando’s... true biological son."
Clara’s heart stopped.
"Marco... was the real heir," Julian whispered, a faint, tragic smile touching his lips. "Armando hid him... in plain sight... as your hound. Dante was... the decoy... the shield..."
Julian’s breath hitched, a long, shuddering sigh leaving his lungs, and his hazel eyes froze, staring unblinkingly at the red emergency strobes.
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Julian Bellandi was dead.
***
