Chapter 4 - A Whisper in the Nursery
Mateo moved with terrifying speed.
Before the sound of the second gunshot had even faded, his hand was already inside his shoulder holster. He grabbed me by the back of the neck, shoving me down onto the floor behind the heavy mahogany bed, using his own body as a shield.
"Stay down!" he hissed.
The heavy oak doors of the master bedroom flew open with a bang.
A man stepped into the frame, dressed in full black tactical gear, a silenced submachine gun held at his hip. But he wasn't looking for Mateo. His eyes darted straight toward the small bed where Lily was sleeping.
"Clear!" the gunman yelled back toward the corridor.
Mateo didn't give him a second breath. He fired twice from his knees. The bullets hit the intruder dead center in the chest, the heavy 9mm rounds slamming him backward into the hallway wall.
"Clara, grab the kid!" Mateo roared, rising to his feet as more footsteps thundered toward us from the grand staircase.
I scrambled across the floor on my hands and knees, reaching the bed just as Lily woke up, screaming in terror from the noise. I snatched her into my arms, tucking her head under my chin, shielding her small body with mine.
"Mommy! Mommy!" she sobbed.
"I've got you, baby! I've got you!" I cried, backing toward the far corner of the bedroom.
Mateo was already at the doorway, firing rhythmically down the hall. The tactical lights from the intruders' weapons whipped across the darkness like strobe lights.
"They aren't hitmen from the Lucchesi family," Mateo shouted over the deafening noise of the gunfire. "These are internal house guards! Silvio’s personal detail!"
A high-pitched ping echoed in the corridor—a stun grenade bouncing across the marble tiles.
"Shield your eyes!" Mateo bellowed, diving back into the bedroom just as a blinding white flash and a concussive shockwave blew out the glass of the stained-glass windows.
My ears rang violently. The room filled with thick, sulfurous smoke.
Through the haze, a figure stepped through the ruined doorway. He wasn't wearing tactical gear. He was wearing his immaculate navy suit, holding a silver-plated revolver in his right hand.
Silvio.
"You always were too sentimental, Mateo," Silvio said, his voice carrying clearly over the hum of the smoke extractors. "Just like your father. He let his heart get soft over a woman, and it cost him his empire. Now you're doing the same for a dead auditor’s widow."
Mateo was on his side near the shattered nightstand, his gun empty, the slide locked back. He glared up at Silvio with pure, unadulterated venom. "You sold out the family, Silvio. For what? Lucchesi’s blood money?"
"Lucchesi offered me fifty percent of the shipping terminals," Silvio sneered, raising his revolver toward Mateo's head. "You offered me retirement. I built this house, Mateo. I'm not going to sit back and watch you hand it over to a maid and her bastard child."
"Don't!" I screamed, stepping out from behind the bed, holding Lily tightly against my chest.
Silvio turned his head toward me, a dark, wicked smile curling his lips. "Ah, Clara. The dutiful widow. You should have stayed in your cheap apartment in the slums. Your husband died quietly. You could have too."
"You murdered Julian," I spat, my voice shaking with rage. "He trusted you!"
"Julian was a fool who couldn't take a bribe," Silvio said coldly, his gun shifting away from Mateo and pointing straight at my forehead. "And you're a fool for thinking this boy could save you."
"Silvio," Mateo's voice came out as a low, ominous rumble from the floor.
Silvio didn't look back down. "Goodbye, Clara."
His finger began to tighten on the trigger.
Lily, locked in my arms, suddenly popped her small head up, pointed her tiny finger straight at Silvio, and yelled with all the fury of a three-year-old: "BAD MAN! DON'T TOUCH MY MOMMY!"
She threw her blue stuffed rabbit straight at his face.
It was a ridiculous, innocent gesture. The plush toy hit Silvio right in the eyes. It didn't hurt him, but for a fraction of a microsecond, his instinct made him flinch and blink.
That fraction of a second was all Mateo needed.
May you like
Mateo lunged forward like a wounded panther, grabbing Silvio by the ankles and slamming him backward onto the hard wooden floor. The revolver discharged, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly off the concrete ceiling.
Mateo scrambled on top of him, his bare hands locking around Silvio’s throat with lethal force.
