Chapter 6 - Blood on the Marble
The gunshot shattered the quiet peace of the sunroom like a thunderclap.
The heavy 9mm bullet struck the hitman squarely in his shoulder, the impact throwing him backward against the glass wall. His weapon clattered out of his hand, spinning across the marble floor.
Rosa shrieked, scrambling behind a stone pillar, covering her head.
The hitman cursed, reaching into his boot for a backup knife, his eyes burning with rage. But before he could even draw the blade, the heavy mahogany double doors of the sunroom were kicked completely off their hinges.
Marco burst into the room like a god of war.
He didn't even look at me. His eyes locked onto the hitman. In a single fluid, terrifying motion, Marco crossed the room, grabbed the hitman by his throat, and lifted the two-hundred-pound man off his feet, slamming him violently into the concrete wall.
Glass shattered everywhere.
"Who sent you?" Marco roared, his voice shaking the entire glass structure, his large hand crushing the man's windpipe until his boots kicked uselessly against the floor.
"Gianna..." the hitman choked out, blood leaking from his split lip. "Gianna... Falcone..."
Marco’s face turned into a mask of pure, unadulterated death. He didn't waste another second. He drew his silver Colt .45 from his holster, pressed the barrel against the hitman’s forehead, and pulled the trigger without blinking.
The heavy body dropped to the floor like a sack of wet flour.
Silence descended over the sunroom, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the quiet weeping of Rosa from behind the pillar.
Marco turned around slowly. His suit jacket was torn, his hands stained with blood. He looked at me—standing by the armchair, two hands still holding the smoking handgun, my chest heaving, my eyes wide.
He dropped his weapon onto the table and ran to me.
"Elena!" Marco gasped, his hands flying over my shoulders, my face, my arms, inspecting every inch of my body with desperate, frantic terror. "Are you hit? Did he touch you? Look at me, carina, look at me!"
"I'm... I'm okay," I whispered, the adrenaline slowly leaving my body, making my knees buckle.
Marco caught me before I hit the floor. He lifted me effortlessly into his broad arms, crushing me against his chest, burying his face in my neck, his heavy breath ragged and shaking.
"I fired the shot, Marco," I murmured against his shoulder, holding onto his blood-stained lapels. "I shot him."
"You survived," Marco breathed, his voice cracking into a rare, raw emotion that tore through my heart. "You saved yourself. My brave, beautiful queen."
Dominic Rossi burst into the sunroom with six armed guards, their weapons raised. He stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the dead hitman, the poisoned tea on the black plant, and Marco holding me on the floor.
"Clean this up, Dominic," Marco commanded, his voice dropping into a register that made even Dominic flinch. "And call the captains."
Dominic stepped forward, his gray eyes looking at the dead assassin, then at the black pistol resting on the coffee table. He looked at me, and for the first time in three weeks, the flat, cold look in his eyes vanished—replaced by a deep, profound nod of respect.
"Where are we going, Boss?" Dominic asked quietly.
May you like
Marco stood up, carrying me in his arms like I weighed nothing at all. He looked out the shattered sunroom window toward the city skyline where the Falcone empire rested.
"We are going to end the Falcones," Marco said softly, his voice carrying the finality of a funeral bell. "Once and for all."
