Page 117 of The Mafia King's Lost Son
This clearly isn’t the police or another family. This is something else entirely, and it doesn’t look good.
I press my back against the pillar and close my eyes for just a second.
My son is safe in the basement with Scarlett. Marco’s team is protecting and keeping them away from whatever fresh hell just walked through that door. Whatever happens next, at least I know that much.
But as I listen to the boots approaching and count the weapons I can’t fight with my empty gun and bloody knife, I understand with sinking dread that this nightmare isn’t over.
It’s just beginning…
32
SCARLETT
The basement is cold and dark, and even from here, I can smell the death and violence going on upstairs.
I’m sitting on the stone floor with Luca in my lap, his face buried against my chest, his small body still trembling from everything he’s been through. Marco’s men are positioned around us, four of them watching every entrance with their weapons ready, their faces tight, ready to intercept any intruder.
“You’re safe down here.” That’s what Marco said before he went back upstairs to help Dante.
But I don’t feel safe. I feel like I’m sitting in the eye of a hurricane, waiting for it to swallow me.
The gunfire above us has slowed down, which should be a good thing. It means Dante’s winning and Viktor’s men are dead or dying. It means this nightmare might actually be ending and I can take my son home and try to piece together some kind of normal life.
So why can’t I shake this feeling in my gut? This cold, heavy certainty that something terrible is coming?
“Mama?” Luca’s voice is small and hoarse from crying. “Is D okay?”
“He’s fine, baby. He’s upstairs making sure all the bad men go away.”
“When can we go home?”
Home. I don’t even know what that word means anymore. The estate doesn’t feel like home, it’s a fortress full of armed men and security cameras and the constant threat of violence. Where my son had been kidnapped from, despite all of those.
Portland wasn’t home either, just a place I was hiding, always looking over my shoulders and waiting to run. Maybe home is wherever Dante and Luca are. Maybe home is something we’ll have to build together after all this is over. That’s if we survive long enough to build anything.
“Soon,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “We’ll go home soon.”
One of Marco’s men, a guy with a shaved head and a scar across his chin, presses his hand to his earpiece. His expression changes. Goes from alert to alarmed in half a second.
“What?” I ask, my heart starting to pound. “What’s happening?”
“There are new hostiles incoming. Multiple vehicles. We need to?—”
The explosion cuts him off before he can complete the sentence.
The whole basement shakes, dust and debris raining down from the ceiling. Luca screams and I pull him tighter against me, my heart slamming against my ribs.
“Move!” the scarred man shouts. “Get them to the east passage!”
Everything becomes chaotic as Marco’s men grab me, pulling me up and pushing toward a narrow doorway I didn’t notice before. Luca is crying in my arms, his tears hot against my neck.
We’re soon running through a passage, climbing stone steps, and the gunfire above us is different now. It’s louder and more intense. Whatever’s happening up there, it’s terrible.
We emerge through a door hidden behind a large artwork of the twelve disciples, and I duck behind a pillar with Luca to case the room where we aren’t as vulnerable. The men with us also move into more protected positions.
The cathedral has become hell on earth. There are bodies everywhere, more than before, fresh ones mixed with the old. Blood is coating the ancient floors in spreading pools that reflect the weak light from the shattered windows. Smoke and dust fill the air so thick I can barely breathe.
And in the middle of it all, walking through the chaos like a queen entering her throne room, is a woman.
