Chapter 7 - A Bullet in the Rain
“Matteo,” Cassian managed, stepping forward while a waiter hurried to clean up the spilled crystal and alcohol. His voice was strained, his smile stretched so tight it looked like a scar. “What is the meaning of this? Who is this woman?”
Matteo did not smile. He walked steadily toward his cousin, his hand resting securely against the small of my back.
“This is Elena Morelli,” Matteo announced, his deep baritone cutting cleanly through the silent ballroom. “Sofia’s identical twin sister. And the sole custodian of the private journals my wife kept before her murder.”
The words dropped like a cluster bomb. Across the room, several senior capos exchanged sharp, alarmed glances. Cassian’s throat constricted, his predatory confidence evaporating into raw panic.
“That's absurd,” Cassian sneered, trying to rally the room. “Sofia had no family. This is an impostor you plucked from the streets to manipulate the council! Matteo’s grief has driven him mad!”
“Is that so?” I spoke up, stepping forward into the circle of light. My voice didn't waver. “Then perhaps the council would like to examine the wire transfer receipts from Banque Cantonale in Geneva, transferring four million dollars to a demolition specialist named Robert Cruz two days before the explosion? The records were recovered from Sofia’s safe-deposit box this morning.”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed into slits of venomous hatred. He realized he was cornered; the evidence was airtight, and the older dons in the room were already taking half a step away from him, signaling that their protection had vanished.
“Kill them,” Cassian hissed under his breath.
Suddenly, two men by the service doors drew suppressed semi-automatics from their coats.
“Down!” Matteo roared, his reflexes blindingly fast.
He lunged forward, sweeping me and Leo behind the cover of a heavy marble pillar just as the first suppressed rounds shattered the champagne pyramid behind us. The ballroom erupted into chaos: women screamed, men overturned banquet tables, and the sound of gunfire echoed against the vaulted ceiling.
Matteo drew his own firearm with chilling precision, firing three controlled shots that dropped one of the gunmen instantly.
“Marco! Get them to the service elevator!” Matteo yelled over the din of shattering glass.
“Matteo, no! We stay together!” I shouted, holding Leo tight against my chest. The baby was crying, terrified by the deafening noise, but his arms were locked around my neck.
“Go, Elena!” Matteo ordered, his hand coming up to cup my jaw for a split second, his thumb brushing my cheek with fierce desperation. “Protect our son! I will finish this!”
Marco grabbed my arm, leading me through the panicked crowd toward the back service corridors. Rain lashed against the fire exit as we broke through the metal doors into the alleyway behind the hotel.
Before we could reach the waiting armored sedan, a figure stepped out from the shadows of the fire escape, leveling a pistol directly at my chest.
It was Cassian. His tuxedo was torn, his eyes bloodshot with frantic rage.
“You ruined everything,” Cassian snarled, cocking the hammer. “You were supposed to stay in the gutter where you belonged!”
Leo let out a terrified scream.
Without thinking, without weighing the odds, I turned my back to the barrel, hunching over the child with my entire body, ready to take the impact into my own spine.
A gunshot cracked through the alley.
I braced for the burning pain, but it never came.
Cassian’s eyes rolled back. A single, clean red hole bloomed in the center of his forehead before he collapsed forward onto the wet asphalt, dead before he hit the ground.
Standing at the mouth of the alley, his smoking gun lowered, was Matteo.
His coat was soaked with rain, blood dripping from a graze on his forearm, but his eyes were fixed entirely on me. He dropped the weapon onto the ground, covering the distance between us in three frantic strides. He wrapped his powerful arms around both of me and Leo, crushing us against his chest, his breathing ragged, his forehead pressed against mine.
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“You’re safe,” he whispered fiercely, his voice breaking as he buried his face in my damp hair. “I have you. I have both of you.”
And standing there in the cold Chicago rain, surrounded by violence and ruin, I felt the safest I had ever been in my life.
