Chapter 6 - The Trap Sprung
The deafening roar of automatic gunfire swallowed the canal bypass as Luca stepped out into the smoke.
Through the cracked, blackened glass of the SUV, I watched in stunned horror and awe. Luca didn't cower. He moved with the calculated, lethal grace of an apex predator. Standing behind the reinforced door of the vehicle, he raised his pistol and fired three steady, rhythmic shots toward the concrete embankment fifty yards away.
A figure in black tactical gear tumbled from the ridge, crashing motionless into the muddy ditch below.
“Suppressing fire!” Marco shouted, leaping out from the front passenger side, his rifle barking in rapid bursts that chewed into the treeline where muzzle flashes illuminated the grey morning fog.
Beside me, Margaret was shivering violently, her hands clasped tightly around the silver pendant I had fastened around her neck.
“Anthony...” she wept softly. “Not again. Please, God, not again.”
“He’s protecting us, Margaret,” I whispered, wrapping my arms tightly around the trembling woman, pulling her down toward the floorboards. “Keep your head down. He won’t let them touch you.”
Suddenly, the passenger-side window next to me spiderwebbed violently as another bullet struck the armored glass. A man in a dark utility jacket appeared out of the thick smoke, holding a shotgun aimed directly at our door handle. It was Tonio—the traitor driver. His face was smeared with soot and blood, his jaw set in desperate, frantic rage.
He reached for the exterior handle, intending to rip the door open and drag us out as hostages.
My breath caught in my throat. Margaret gasped in terror.
There was no time to think. Luca was twenty yards away, engaging two shooters pinned behind a concrete culvert. Marco was occupied covering the rear flank.
I looked down at the floorboard. Resting beside Marco’s seat was a heavy steel tire iron the driver had kept in the door pocket.
Without hesitating, I grabbed the cold metal tool with both hands.
Tonio wrenched the door open with a metallic screech, raising his shotgun barrel straight toward Margaret. “Get out! Both of you, move, or I’ll paint this car with your—”
Before he could finish his threat, I surged forward from the shadows of the backseat, swinging the heavy tire iron with every ounce of strength and fury in my body.
The steel rod connected squarely with the side of Tonio’s scarred jaw with a sickening *crack*.
Tonio stumbled backward into the mud with a strangled howl, dropping the shotgun. He clutched his shattered face, spitting blood and teeth onto the gravel, his eyes wide with shock that the quiet housekeeper had just struck him.
He lunged back toward the door, his hand reaching for the combat knife at his belt. “You little bitch—”
*BANG.*
A single bullet tore through the center of Tonio’s chest.
The traitor’s eyes rolled back, his body stiffening before collapsing backward into the ditch, motionless.
Standing three feet behind him was Luca, his smoking pistol still raised, his dark coat billowing in the wind. The gunfire on the ridge had stopped; three black-clad bodies lay scattered across the embankment, neutralized by Marco and the remaining Moretti security team.
Luca rushed toward our vehicle, his eyes frantic with an emotion I had never seen on him: sheer, unadulterated panic.
“Emma!” he roared, dropping his gun to the holster and grabbing both my shoulders, pulling me out into the cool morning air. “Are you hit?! Did he touch you?!”
His large hands checked my arms, my face, my waist, his breathing ragged and uneven. He was trembling—not from the firefight, but from the terror of losing me.
“I’m fine, Luca,” I breathed, using his first name without realizing it, my hands still shaking as I dropped the bloody tire iron onto the gravel. “I’m not hurt. Margaret is safe inside.”
Luca stopped inspecting me. His gaze locked onto my face, his chest heaving. The cold, ruthless Don who ruled the city’s underworld looked completely undone by my proximity.
“You hit him with a tire iron,” Luca murmured, half in shock, half in fierce admiration.
“He was pointing a gun at Margaret,” I said, my voice trembling now that the adrenaline was beginning to ebb. “I couldn't let him hurt her.”
Luca pulled me against his chest in a sudden, fierce embrace. His arms locked around my back, crushing me against the hard wool of his coat. I could feel the thundering rhythm of his heart beneath his ribs. For three precious seconds, the burning cars, the dead bodies, and the rain disappeared. There was only the warmth of his body and the fierce, protective shelter of his arms.
“You’re incredible,” Luca whispered against my hair.
He slowly pulled back, his hands lingering on my waist, his eyes dark with a promise of retribution.
“Marco!” Luca barked, without breaking eye contact with me.
“Boss!” Marco called out, jogging over while wiping blood from a minor shrapnel graze on his temple. “Ridge is clear. Five shooters down. All Bellini contract mercenaries. Giancarlo mobilized everything he had to silence us before we reached Lake Forest.”
Luca looked down at Tonio’s body in the ditch. “Search his pockets. Find the burner phone.”
Marco knelt down and rifled through the dead driver’s jacket, pulling out a cheap flip phone within seconds. He flipped it open and tapped the screen. “Last outgoing call was to Giancarlo Bellini’s personal estate line twenty minutes ago. Tonio gave them our coordinates.”
Luca reached out and took the phone from Marco’s hand. He pressed the redial button and raised the device to his ear.
After three rings, a gruff, panicked voice answered on the other end.
*“Tonio? Is it done? Did you kill the old woman and the girl?”*
Luca’s lips curled into a terrifying, humorless smile.
“Tonio is dead, Giancarlo,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a register of pure, frigid death. “And your mercenaries are rotting in a drainage ditch.”
The other end of the line went dead silent. A shaky breath rattled through the speaker.
*“Luca... listen to me... this was a misunderstanding. Vanessa told me—”*
“Listen to me very carefully, old man,” Luca interrupted, his tone cutting through the static like razor wire. “I am coming to your Lake Forest estate right now. You have thirty minutes to gather every captain, every council member, and every elder of the five families to your grand salon. If I arrive and find a single man missing, or if a single weapon is drawn, I will burn your house to the ground with you and your family locked inside.”
*“Luca, please, we have thirty years of business—”*
“Thirty minutes, Giancarlo,” Luca said coldly. “The trial of the Bellini family begins today.”
He snapped the phone shut, tossed it onto Tonio’s corpse, and turned back to the remaining SUV.
May you like
“Marco,” Luca commanded. “Transfer Margaret to car three. Emma, you ride with me in the front. We’re heading straight to Lake Forest to finish what Helena Bellini started thirty-five years ago.”
***
