Chapter 6 - THE RED LINE
The cold barrel of the pearl-handled revolver caught the amber lamplight, gleaming like a silver tooth in the mouth of a wolf.
Luca didn't move. He stood on his side of the massive mahogany desk, his broad shoulders squared, his dark eyes locked onto Isabella’s without a flicker of fear. In his world, men didn't flinch when a gun was pointed at them; they calculated the milliseconds between the twitch of a finger and the impact of lead.
"You think a bullet solves this, Isabella?" Luca asked, his voice dangerously low. "You kill me in my own study, and within one hour, Marco Bellini and forty armed loyalists will storm this house. Your father’s political career will be dissected in every federal courtroom from here to Washington before breakfast."
Isabella’s finger tightened slightly on the trigger, the double-action hammer cocking back with a sharp, metallic click.
"Who said anything about killing you, Luca?" she smiled, her eyes flashing with manic brilliance. "We don't need you dead. We just need you legally incompetent. A tragic breakdown following the sudden, tragic disappearance of your domestic staff. A grief-stricken billionaire who signs away his voting shares to his loving bride before checking himself into a private Swiss sanatorium."
The heavy oak doors behind her suddenly shuddered.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy, rhythmic blows struck the exterior of the study doors, followed by the muffled sound of splintering wood.
Isabella’s head jerked toward the entryway. "What is that?"
"That," Luca said, a cold, predatory smile finally breaking across his face, "is my brother."
Bang!
The reinforced oak doors blew inward, splintering into a shower of wood chips and brass screws as Marco Bellini charged into the room like a runaway freight train. In his right hand, he held a suppressed tactical submachine gun; in his left, he held the collar of one of Senator Romano’s personal bodyguards, dragging the unconscious man across the Persian rug like a sack of grain.
Isabella spun around, pointing her revolver toward Marco, but before she could acquire her target, Luca moved.
He vaulted across the mahogany desk with the explosive speed of a striking panther, slamming his shoulder directly into Isabella’s midsection.
She gasped, the air rushing out of her lungs in a violent wheeze as she crashed hard against the bookshelves. The pearl-handled revolver slipped from her fingers, clattering uselessly across the wooden floorboards.
Luca pinned her against the shelves with his forearm pressed firmly against her collarbone, his face inches from hers.
"It’s over, Isabella," Luca hissed, his voice vibrating with a lethal, suppressed fury. "The game is finished."
Marco stepped into the room, kicking Isabella’s dropped weapon into the corner, and casually checked the perimeter before looking at Luca with a grim, satisfied nod.
"Perimeter is secure, boss," Marco reported, his eyes flicking down to the Romano dossiers scattered across the desk. "We intercepted Senator Romano’s encrypted wiretaps ten minutes ago. The federal task office in Manhattan is already executing search warrants on his campaign headquarters."
Isabella glared up at Luca, her face purple with rage, her perfect hair coming unpinned. "You think the federal government can touch my father? He owns the judges! He owns the Senate!"
"He did own them," Luca corrected quietly, stepping back and letting Marco secure her wrists with a pair of heavy flex-cuffs. "Until an eight-month-old file in my father’s sub-basement proved he’s been running an interstate extortion ring for thirty years."
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Isabella spat on the rug at his feet. "You'll never make it to court, Luca. The Romanos will tear this entire estate to the ground before the sun comes up."
"Let them try," Luca said, turning his back on her. "Marco, lock her in the subterranean vault. Keep her there until the federal marshals arrive to collect her."
