Chapter 3 - The Blood Oath Broken
Marcus Bell didn’t flinch, even as my laser sight locked directly onto the center of his forehead. He knew I wouldn’t fire—not with Emily half-pinned between his men and the SUV door.
“Let her go, Marcus,” I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, vibrating calm. “Whatever you think you’re walking away with tonight ends right here.”
“I’m walking away with everything, Dominic!” Marcus sneered, his mask of loyalty entirely discarded. “Your father promised me equal share of the Romano syndicate. Then he died, and he handed the keys to his twenty-two-year-old hothead son! I built this empire while you were still learning how to extort shipping lanes!”
Emily raised her head, spitting blood onto the concrete. “Don’t listen to him, Dom! He’s the one who framed the Moretti family five years ago! He staged my kidnapping so he could control the distribution ports behind your back!”
The missing puzzle pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. Five years ago, Emily had discovered an illegal pipeline laundering weapons through our northern docks. Before she could bring the evidence to me, she vanished. Marcus had blamed our rivals, sparking a bloody gang war that claimed dozens of lives—all while he kept Emily captive in a secret compound outside the city, using her life as leverage should I ever suspect him.
“You kept my sister locked away for five years?” I whispered, the rage inside me burning so hot it felt freezing. “You let me mourn her? You sat at my dining table, drank my wine, and consoled me while you held her in a cage?”
“She was insurance!” Marcus shouted, gesturing wildly. “And she would have stayed comfortably locked up until I finished absorbing your council votes! But she managed to slip past my guards today, and what does she do? She dresses this brat up and sends her straight into the lion’s den!”
Daisy peeked around my arm, her brown eyes blazing. “I’m not a brat! You’re a poopy-head!”
One of Marcus’s mercenaries snickered, quickly stifling it under Marcus’s furious glare.
“Shut that little rat up!” Marcus barked, pulling his own pistol and aiming it not at me, but directly at Daisy. “Put your weapon on the floor, Dominic, or I splatter both of them right now. You know I don’t miss.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, but my hands remained steady as stone. “You pull that trigger, Marcus, and you won’t leave this room alive. You know what I do to traitors.”
“You don’t have the leverage anymore, little brother,” Marcus grinned triumphantly. “Drop the gun. Now!”
“Mister Teddy,” Daisy whispered, her hand tugging my lapel. “Can I sing my song now?”
In that split second, an idea sparked.
“Sing it loud, princess,” I muttered under my breath.
Daisy raised her pink plastic microphone, pressed the button that activated the high-frequency siren sound effect, and yelled into it at the top of her lungs: “HEY POOPY-HEAD! LOOK AT ME!”
The piercing, distorted wail of the toy’s speaker shattered the silence of the enclosed concrete garage. It bounced off the low ceiling with ear-splitting intensity. Instinctively, Marcus’s mercenaries flinched, their eyes darting toward the tiny girl screaming into a neon megaphone.
That split-second distraction was all I needed.
I fired two shots. The first took out the mercenary holding Emily’s shoulder; the second shattered the tire of Marcus’s getaway SUV.
“Marco, now!” I shouted.
Behind us, Marco and a squad of Romano enforcers burst through the stairwell doors, their assault rifles barking in unison. A fierce firefight broke out across the parking bay, bullets sparking against concrete pillars and shattering vehicle windshields into glittering confetti.
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Emily broke free from her captor, diving beneath a parked sedan just as Marcus fired wildly in her direction.
“Get the girl!” Marcus screamed to his remaining men, ducking behind the armored SUV. “Kill them all!”
