Chapter 8 - Glass and Blood
The high-rise living room turned into an absolute warzone within seconds. Muzzle flashes blared through the darkness like blinding strobes, and the deafening roar of automatic gunfire shattered the heavy silence of the night.
CRASH!
The massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows along the eastern wall shattered under the hail of stray bullets, spraying thousands of sharp, crystalline shards across the white marble floor. The freezing autumn wind came howling through the broken panes, sweeping rain and shattered glass across the room.
“Serena! Get down!” Marcus screamed over the deafening noise, firing back at Lorenzo’s men before taking a hit to his shoulder and collapsing behind the heavy kitchen island.
I threw myself behind a heavy marble pillar, pressing my back against the icy stone. Glass shards rained down on me, slicing through my clothes and cutting into my skin.
I looked across the room and gasped in horror.
Valentina had come out of her sunroom, confused by the sudden noise. She stood near the center hallway, completely exposed, frozen in terror as bullets chipped away at the marble walls around her.
“Valentina!” I screamed.
Ignoring the chaos and the deadly hail of flying metal, I broke cover. I scrambled across the shattered marble floor on my hands and knees. Sharp glass bit deep into my palms and knees, but I felt no pain—only a surging wave of adrenaline.
I reached Valentina just as one of Lorenzo’s gunmen aimed his rifle toward the hallway. I threw my body over the frail old woman, shielding her with my own frame as we crashed onto the glass-strewn floor together behind an overturned oak table.
Valentina gasped, clutching my shirt. “Serena... child...”
“Stay down, ma’am! Don’t move!” I choked out, blood dripping from cuts on my forehead into my eyes.
A heavy boot stepped into my line of sight.
I looked up through the crimson haze. Lorenzo Vane stood over us, his rifle pointed straight down at my face. His face was twisted into a triumphant, psychotic sneer.
“So you’re the maid who ruined everything,” Lorenzo hissed, resting his finger against the trigger. “Celeste sent her regards. She said to make sure you suffer first.”
I stared up into the barrel of the gun, my fingernails digging into the wooden legs of the overturned table, blood pooling beneath my fingers. I refused to close my eyes. If I was going to die, I was going to look my killer in the eye.
“Do it,” I spat through clenched teeth.
Lorenzo raised his rifle—
BOOM!
A single, thunderous gunshot echoed from the private elevator foyer.
Lorenzo’s head snapped back violently, a burst of red spraying across the wall behind him. He collapsed onto the shattered glass floor like a felled oak tree, his rifle clattering uselessly away.
Through the smoke and rain blowing in from the shattered windows, a figure emerged.
It was Dante.
He was soaking wet, draped in a blood-splattered coat, holding a heavy chrome pistol in his hand. His face was a mask of unbridled, horrifying wrath. He looked like an vengeful demon rising straight out of hell.
Behind him, dozens of his loyal personal enforcers flooded the penthouse, ruthlessly wiping out the remaining New York gunmen in a swift, brutal display of absolute dominance.
Dante dropped his weapon to his side and sprinted across the ruined room, his boots crushing shattered glass into fine dust.
“Serena!” he roared, his voice cracking with pure terror.
He slid to his knees on the bloody glass beside me, reaching out with frantic hands to grab me.
I was standing barefoot on the shattered glass now, having pushed myself up to protect Valentina. Blood was running down my arms, dripping from beneath my fingernails where I had clung to the furniture, staining the white marble beneath my bare feet crimson.
Dante looked at me—standing barefoot among broken glass, covered in blood—and then looked down at his mother lying motionless behind me.
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A terrible, terrifying wildness flashed in his dark eyes. He reached for his gun again, his knuckles turning pure white as he raised the weapon toward the shadowed corner behind the sofa.
“Dante, NO!” I screamed, throwing my arms around his waist and pinning his arm down with all my remaining strength. “Dante, stop! Look at me! It’s over! They’re gone!”
