Chapter 7 - Bloodlines and Betrayal
The heavy silver bucket connected with a sickening crack.
The attacker stumbled, his vision blurring, the knife slipping from his fingers. That split-second distraction was all Matteo needed. He surged upward despite the agonizing tear in his stitches, grabbed the man by the throat, and slammed him into the marble column with bone-shattering force. The man went limp and slid to the floor.
Emergency lights hummed to life, bathing the grand ballroom in a harsh, amber glare.
The battle was already over. Gianni and the Ferrante loyalists stood over five downed gunmen near the terrace doors. Santoro was pinned against the double oak doors, a gun barrel pressed directly under his chin by Matteo’s youngest lieutenant.
The ballroom was empty of guests; the high-society crowd had fled through the service tunnels within the first thirty seconds. Only the blood, the shattered crystal, and the scent of cordite remained.
Matteo was breathing hard, pressing one bloodied hand against his side where the sutures had torn open once more. His tuxedo shirt was ruined, but his gaze was locked entirely on me.
I was sitting on the floor, holding the dented champagne bucket, my green dress torn at the knee, trembling from head to toe as the adrenaline drained from my veins.
Matteo walked over. He didn't look at Santoro. He didn't look at his men. He dropped to both knees in the shattered glass and pulled me into his arms.
""Nadia,"" he breathed, his voice cracking with emotion I had never heard in him before. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, his arms wrapping around me so fiercely I could feel the violent pounding of his heart against my ribs. ""You are mad. Absolutely insane.""
""He was going to kill you,"" I sobbed into his shoulder, the tears finally breaking through. ""He was going to take Marco's father.""
Matteo pulled back and cupped my face with his large, calloused hands. His thumbs wiped the dust and tears from my cheeks. In front of his entire family, in front of the captured traitors, the boss of the Ferrante family kissed me—hard, desperate, and filled with a raw, consuming passion that obliterated every boundary we had built over the past two weeks.
When he finally pulled away, his eyes were blazing with a cold, terrifying fire.
He stood up and turned toward Santoro.
""Take him to the warehouse on 54th,"" Matteo ordered, his voice returning to that lethal, absolute authority. ""Every asset he owns. Every warehouse in Brooklyn. Every contact in Naples. Strip him of his name. If he breathes a word of this night, bury him under the concrete of the new pier.""
""Matteo, please!"" Santoro begged, his gold cane rolling across the bloody floor. ""We are family! Your father—""
""My father is dead,"" Matteo cut him off, not even turning around. ""And my son was in danger because of you. You are no longer family. You are nothing.""
Gianni dragged the weeping old man through the service exit, while the rest of the crew began the grim, silent work of sanitizing the ballroom before the police arrived.
Matteo held out his hand to me.
May you like
""Come,"" he said gently. ""Marco is waiting at the safe house. We are going home.""
I took his hand. It was covered in soot and blood, but as his fingers closed around mine, I didn't pull away. I knew what world I had stepped into. I knew the danger that would always linger at the edges of the shadows. But looking into Matteo Ferrante's eyes, I also knew that there was no safer place on earth than inside his circle.
