Chapter 4 - Blood in the Snow
The tranquil morning shattered into absolute chaos.
“Get the children down into the reinforced panic room behind the wine cellar!” Dominic roared, dropping his civilian facade instantly as the cold, ruthless mob boss took absolute command. He drew a heavy Beretta pistol from a concealed holster beneath his suit jacket, racking the slide with brutal efficiency.
“Daddy!” Leo screamed, panicking as the distant sound of automatic gunfire echoed across the frozen grounds.
Isabella didn't hesitate. She grabbed Lily with one arm and scooped Leo up with the other, sprinting toward the interior hallway leading to the basement stairs.
“Stay close to me, don't look back!” Isabella shouted over the blaring security alarms.
As they reached the heavy oak cellar door, a spray of bullets shattered the kitchen windows behind them, chewing through the drywall and sending wooden splinters raining down like shrapnel. Marcus returned fire from the hallway, his assault rifle barking in rapid, deafening succession.
“Go! Now!” Marcus bellowed at Isabella.
Isabella shoved Leo and Lily down the dark stone steps of the wine cellar, diving in after them just as another explosion rocked the rear courtyard, shaking the foundation of the entire mansion.
Down in the subterranean vault, the emergency red lighting cast long, eerie shadows across thousands of expensive wine bottles. Isabella dragged the children into the small, steel-reinforced alcove behind the primary wine racks, slamming the hydraulic security hatch shut and punching in the emergency manual lock.
“Are we going to die, Mommy?” Lily asked, her lower lip trembling as she buried her face in Isabella’s chest.
“No, sweetheart, never,” Isabella whispered fiercely, holding both children tightly against her, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. “We are going to be fine. Your daddy—Mr. Moretti—is going to keep us safe.”
Outside the heavy steel hatch, the muffled sounds of war echoed through the stone walls. Gunshots, shattering glass, shouting voices, and the heavy thud of combat boots stomping across the kitchen floor above.
Vincenzo’s men had found the house. They were hunting for Leo.
Back upstairs, Dominic Moretti moved through the hallways of his ancestral home like an angel of death.
He didn't feel fear. He felt only a cold, burning fury that eclipsed everything else. For six years, he had lived with the guilt of failing his wife; he would be damned before he let anyone lay a finger on his son.
Bang! Bang!
Two of Vincenzo’s masked hitmen rounded the corner near the grand staircase. Dominic didn't hesitate. Two clean headshots dropped them instantly onto the Persian rug, their bodies sliding down the steps in a pool of dark blood.
“Boss!” Marcus yelled, running down the corridor from the east wing. “They’ve breached the main foyer! There’s too many of them, we need to fall back to the perimeter ridge!”
“We don't fall back,” Dominic said, his voice dead calm, reloading his pistol with a fresh magazine. “This is my house. They don't leave alive.”
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from the basement stairwell door.
Dominic froze.
Someone was trying to force the wine cellar hatch.
“Marcus, hold the foyer!” Dominic barked, sprinting toward the kitchen stairs.
Before Marcus could reply, a massive blast blew the kitchen cellar door completely off its hinges, sending heavy oak splinters flying across the room. Through the smoke and rising dust, a tall, scarred man with cold gray eyes stepped into the kitchen—Salvatore, the traitorous lieutenant who had secretly aligned with Vincenzo.
Salvatore held a submachine gun pointed directly at the open basement stairwell.
“Well, well, well,” Salvatore sneered, a twisted grin crossing his scarred face. “Look at the mighty Dominic Moretti, reduced to protecting a housekeeper and a couple of brats. Where’s the boy, Dominic? Vincenzo wants to finish what he started six years ago.”
Dominic stood in the center of the kitchen, his pistol raised, perfectly steady, pointed right between Salvatore’s eyes.
“You take one step toward that basement, Salvatore, and I’ll blow your skull across this marble floor,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a lethal, quiet whisper.
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Salvatore chuckled, though his eyes darted nervously toward Dominic’s unwavering gun barrel. “You can shoot me, Dominic. But my men down in that wine cellar are already planting C4 charges on the panic room hatch. You think a steel door is going to stop ten pounds of military-grade plastic explosives?”
Dominic’s blood ran cold.
