Chapter 2 - Blood in the Olive Groves
Chaos erupted instantly.
Screams tore through the high-society gathering as panicked guests hit the gravel, scrambling behind marble tables and stone planters. The string quartet’s instruments clattered to the ground as the musicians fled for the gates.
Alessandro didn't duck. His instincts, honed by a decade of urban warfare and syndicate turf wars, kicked in with terrifying precision. His hand cleared his shoulder holster, drawing a matte-black Sig Sauer in one fluid motion.
“Down!” Marco roared, lunging forward to shove Marta and little Emma behind a massive stone fountain.
At the center of the terrace, a man in a tailored gray suit—one of Alessandro’s own trusted financial auditors, Julian Vance—was sprinting toward the rear service gate, a smoking revolver clutched in his hand.
Julian hadn't been aiming at Alessandro. He had been aiming at the little girl.
“Take him alive!” Alessandro bellowed, his voice cutting through the gunfire like thunder.
Three Moretti enforcers bolted from the shadows of the olive trees, tackling Julian into a dense patch of rose bushes just twenty feet from the iron exit gate. The sound of tearing fabric, grunts, and a sickening crunch echoed across the garden as Julian was pinned to the earth, his weapon kicked far across the gravel.
Alessandro walked toward them slowly, his boots crunching on the stone path. His heart hammered against his ribs—not from fear, but from a cold, blinding rage that threatened to consume him.
Julian lay face down in the dirt, blood leaking from a split lip, his expensive glasses shattered beneath the heel of an enforcer's boot.
“Get him up,” Alessandro ordered.
Two guards hauled Julian to his feet, shoving him roughly against the stone wall of the estate. Julian’s breath came in ragged gasps, his gray suit ruined, his carefully cultivated look of corporate sophistication completely shattered.
Isabella stood frozen near the center of the terrace, her father shielding her behind him. She stared at Julian with wide, disbelieving eyes. Julian Vance—the man who managed her father’s shipping accounts, the man who had shared drinks with them just hours ago, laughing about the upcoming wedding.
Alessandro stepped up close to Julian, pressing the cold barrel of his pistol directly beneath the auditor’s chin.
“You missed a four-year-old child,” Alessandro said, his voice terrifyingly soft. “And you missed me. Sloppy work for a man working for the opposition.”
Julian coughed, a wet, bloody laugh escaping his lips. He looked up at Alessandro, his eyes wild with adrenaline and a strange, desperate defiance.
“You think I’m working alone, Moretti?” Julian spat, blood flecking his chin. “You think planting a bomb was my idea? Look at your own house! Look at who had access to your schedule, your security codes, your private study!”
Alessandro cocked the hammer of his gun. “Names.”
“Go to hell,” Julian snarled.
With a sickening crack, Marco stepped up and delivered a swift, brutal blow to Julian’s knee, buckling the auditor to the ground. Julian shrieked in agony, clutching his leg as he writhed in the dirt.
“Next time, it’s not your knee,” Marco said emotionlessly.
Alessandro lowered the gun, his expression dark as midnight. He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the remaining guests who were now huddled near the main villa under heavy guard.
Julian’s words echoed in his mind.
Look at your own house.
Someone inside the inner circle—someone close enough to know the exact layout of his chair, the dinner schedule, and the security blind spots—had given Julian the clearance to plant the device.
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And if Julian had planted the bomb, who had slipped the flash drive into Isabella’s bag?
Alessandro turned back to Isabella, who was watching him with tears streaming down her pale face. The trust they had built over two years of courtship felt like it was hanging by a single, frayed thread.
