Chapter 8 - Fire and Redemption
The battle for the Rossi estate was fast, violent, and absolute.
Moretti’s mercenaries thought they were raiding the home of a broken, grieving father who hid behind surveillance screens. They didn't realize they had invaded the domain of a man who had regained everything he had to live for.
Using the mansion’s secret maintenance crawlspaces and my intimate knowledge of the property, I struck from the shadows. I took down three men in the grand conservatory before they even cleared their weapons. I flanked two more in the dining hall, utilizing the shadows of the high marble pillars.
By the time I reached the grand foyer, eight of Moretti’s ten strike team members lay disarmed and neutralized on the floor, secured by my surviving, fiercely loyal internal guards.
Then, the heavy front double doors of the mansion blew inward with a deafening crack.
A heavy shotgun blast tore through the shattered oak frames. Through the smoke and rain, stepping over the threshold into my home, came Victor Moretti himself.
He was a tall, gaunt man in a wet trench coat, his eyes sunken and yellowed like a sick wolf. Behind him stood his two last remaining bodyguards, carrying heavy tactical submachine guns.
“Vincent!” Moretti shouted, his voice echoing off the high domed ceiling of the foyer. “Show yourself, you coward! You hid behind your dead wife for a year, and now you hide in the dark!”
I stepped out from behind the grand marble staircase, my rifle held at low ready. “You should have stayed in New York, Victor.”
Moretti’s eyes locked onto mine, a bitter, vicious sneer twisting his face. “Look at you. Dressing up like a soldier again. You think because you killed my brother twenty years ago you get to live in luxury while my family suffered?”
“Your brother was a child-trafficker who tried to sell young girls across the border, Victor,” I said coldly. “My father put a bullet in his head, and he was right to do it.”
“I don't care about the girls!” Moretti roared, raising his shotgun. “I care about blood! I blew your sweet Elena to pieces, and I left your brat in a chair! And tonight, I’m going to burn this palace to the ground with you inside it!”
Before Moretti could pull his trigger, a sharp, metallic sound echoed from the upper balcony above the foyer.
“Hey! Ugly!” a small, clear voice shouted down through the dark.
Moretti and his guards instinctively looked up.
Standing on the high balcony railing, holding a massive, ancient iron candleholder from the library, was my eight-year-old son, Matteo. And right beside him, holding an emergency flare gun she had pulled from the panic room kit, was Clara.
“Matteo! No!” I screamed.
“This is for my mommy!” Matteo yelled with all the strength in his small lungs.
He tipped the heavy iron candleholder over the marble balcony edge. The hundred-pound bronze frame plummeted thirty feet through the air, crashing directly onto the head of Moretti’s chief bodyguard, knocking him instantly unconscious onto the floor.
At the same instant, Clara pulled the trigger of the flare gun.
A blinding, red phosphorus flare burst through the air, hitting the second bodyguard squarely in the chest, setting his tactical jacket ablaze and sending him screaming into the fountain in the center of the foyer.
Distracted and terrified by the sudden attack from above, Moretti spun around, leveling his shotgun toward the balcony.
“No!” I roared.
I crossed the marble floor in three desperate strides, lunging forward with all my weight. I grabbed the barrel of Moretti’s shotgun, jamming it upward just as he pulled the trigger. The blast blew a hole in the crystal chandelier above us, sending thousands of sparkling glass shards raining down like silver snow.
I drove my knee into Moretti’s ribs, sending him crashing onto his back against the wet marble floor. I tore the gun from his hands, kicked it across the room, and pinned him to the ground with my boot pressed firmly against his throat.
Moretti gasped for air, his hands clutching at my boot, his eyes wide with sudden, terrifying realization.
“Please... Vincent...” Moretti choked out, his arrogance completely crushed. “Mercy... speak of mercy...”
I looked down at the man who had destroyed my wife, who had forced my son into silence, and who had brought terror to my doorstep. My heart beat fast, demanding blood.
Then, I looked up at the balcony.
Matteo was standing there, leaning heavily on the railing, watching me. Beside him, Clara held his hand tightly, her eyes fixed on mine, waiting to see what kind of man I was going to be for our son.
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I took a deep, long breath of the rain-cooled air.
“Mercy isn't for men like you, Victor,” I said softly, stepping back and allowing my loyal guards to rush in and drag Moretti away in heavy iron cuffs. “Mercy is for the family you tried to ruin. And you will spend the rest of your life in a federal prison thinking about how you failed.”
