Chapter 7 - Blood in the Nursery: The Ambush at the Family Estate
The peace was an illusion. In Kian Moretti’s world, blood always demanded blood.
Three days after the kiss in the library, the autumn rain had turned into a torrential downpour, rattling the French doors of the sunroom where Zayn and I were sitting on the floor, surrounded by a sprawling wooden train set.
“Look, Aurora! The train is delivering the gold to the castle!” Zayn shouted, pushing a miniature steam engine over a wooden suspension bridge.
“And who guards the gold?” I asked, smiling as I handed him a tiny wooden soldier.
“Me and Dad,” he answered proudly. “Dad has the big guns, and I have the tactical strategy.”
Suddenly, the lights flickered and died.
The entire estate plunged into pitch blackness.
A split second later, the deep, mechanical thud of emergency generators failed to kick on. Instead, the piercing, shrill wail of the perimeter defense alarm shattered the afternoon calm, followed immediately by the staccato *crack-crack-crack* of suppressed automatic gunfire coming from the front courtyard.
My blood ran cold. The wooden soldier slipped from my fingers.
“Zayn,” I whispered, my voice miraculously steady despite the terror suffocating my chest. “Come here. Right now.”
Zayn didn't cry. He was a mafia don's son; he had been drilled for this since he could walk. He scrambled into my arms immediately, his small body trembling as he buried his face in my neck.
The double doors of the sunroom burst open.
I scrambled backward, shielding Zayn with my body, preparing to throw the heavy brass lamp beside the couch.
It was Enzo. His tactical vest was splattered with fresh rain and dark crimson blood. He carried a combat shotgun, his breath ragged.
“Mrs. Moretti!” he barked, his eyes scanning the shadowed hallway behind him. “The Bellini family and the remnants of Delgado’s crew cut the main power grid and breached the northern gate with heavy vehicles! They have twenty men on the grounds!”
“Where is Kian?” I gasped, clutching Zayn tighter.
“The Don was in the underground armory when the breach occurred; he’s fighting his way up through the east wing!” Enzo stepped into the room, pointing toward the concealed panic room behind the library bookcase. “You and the boy need to move to the vault! Now!”
Before we could take three steps, a grenade detonated outside the sunroom terrace.
The massive glass French doors exploded inward in a hail of lethal, glittering shrapnel. The shockwave threw Enzo off his feet, his head slamming violently against the marble hearth of the fireplace, knocking him instantly unconscious.
Through the shattered terrace, rain blew into the room—along with three heavily armed men clad in black tactical gear and ballistic masks.
“Grab the kid!” a guttural voice barked through a respirator. “Bellini wants the boy alive for leverage! Kill the bitch!”
There was no time to think. No time to pray.
I shoved Zayn under the massive mahogany sofa. “Stay down, Zayn! Don't make a sound! Pinky promise me!”
“Aurora, no!” he cried, tears finally spilling down his cheeks.
I didn't answer. I grabbed Enzo’s discarded combat shotgun from the bloody rug. It was heavy, cold, and smelled of sulfur. I had never fired a weapon in my life, but looking at those three armed butchers advancing into the room where an innocent child hid, every ounce of survival instinct I possessed took the wheel.
I raised the heavy barrel, pumped the slide just like I had seen in movies, and pointed it directly at the chest of the lead gunman.
“Get away from him!” I screamed.
The lead man chuckled, raising his submachine gun. “Drop the toy, little girl, and maybe we won't—”
*BOOM.*
The kickback nearly dislocated my right shoulder, throwing me back against the wall, but the blast caught the lead gunman square in the chest, hurling him backward through the broken terrace doors into the rain.
The second man cursed, raising his rifle.
I didn't have time to pump the slide again. I lunged forward, throwing my body across the front of the sofa, shielding Zayn’s hiding spot with my own torso just as the second gunman pulled the trigger.
*Crack.*
A white-hot poker of agony tore through my left shoulder. The impact spun me around, and I crashed onto the floor, blood immediately pooling against the cream carpet.
The third gunman stepped over his fallen comrade, raising his sidearm, pointing the barrel straight between my eyes. “Stupid whore,” he sneered, his finger tightening on the trigger.
I looked down the barrel of death, feeling the warm blood soaking my sweater, and thought only of Zayn safe beneath the sofa.
*I kept my promise.*
The wall behind the gunman exploded.
A human hurricane tore through the shattered entrance. Kian Moretti didn't look like a man; he looked like an ancient god of war unleashed from the depths of hell. His bespoke suit was ripped, covered in gun smoke and blood, his silver eyes blazing with a feral, terrifying madness.
Before the gunman could turn his weapon, Kian’s hand closed around his throat like a steel vice. With a roar of pure, unadulterated fury, Kian slammed the man’s skull through the solid oak bookshelf, the wood splintering like matchsticks.
The second gunman panicked, firing wildly, but Kian didn't even flinch. He drew a custom silver pistol from his hip and fired twice with terrifying, mechanical precision. Both men dropped like empty sacks.
The sunroom fell dead silent, save for the patter of rain and the harsh, ragged sound of Kian’s breathing.
He lowered his weapon, his eyes scanning the carnage until they landed on me, lying in a pool of my own blood on the ruined rug.
The gun slipped from Kian Moretti’s fingers, clattering uselessly against the marble floor.
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The undisputed king of New York dropped to his knees, his face turning an ashen, ghostly white that rivaled the winter frost.
“Aurora...” he choked out, his voice cracking with a terror that twenty armed assassins could never inflict upon him. “Aurora, no... look at me. Look at me!”
