Chapter 8 - The Ambush at Lake Shore
Tell them who I am! Rosa signed, her eyes blazing with regal authority.
I leaned into the heavy brass microphone, matching her furious energy with every ounce of power in my lungs. "To every man carrying a weapon on this estate!" my voice boomed through the manor’s exterior loudspeakers, echoing across the snow-covered battlefield in the courtyard. "This is Rosa Vitale! The widow of Matteo Vitale!"
Below, the relentless chatter of automatic gunfire noticeably slowed.
Rosa’s hands moved like lightning, cutting through the smoky room with commanding precision. Tell them Salvatore is a coward who broke his oath! He returns like a hyena in the dark to murder women while Dante rebuilds our city! Any man who fires another round under Salvatore's orders is marked for death by the Vitale name forever! Lay down your weapons, or you will not leave these gates alive!
"Lay down your weapons!" I shouted into the intercom, translating her words with thunderous conviction. "Salvatore has broken his sacred oath! The name of Vitale will hunt down every traitor who stands beside him! Stand down now!"
The effect across the snow-covered courtyard was instantaneous. Several mercenary vehicles hesitated, their headlights sweeping across the trees as their drivers backed away from the defensive line. Salvatore’s coordinated assault began to fracture from within.
Through the shattered window of the study, I saw Dante capitalize on the hesitation. Moving with lethal, military precision, he and his loyalist guards pushed through the smoke, neutralizing Salvatore’s vanguard and securing the front courtyard.
Suddenly, the heavy door behind us was kicked off its hinges with a deafening crash.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with graying hair and a jagged scar running across his cheek stepped into the room, holding a submachine gun. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and filled with manic hatred.
Salvatore Vitale.
"You always did talk too much, Rosa," Salvatore snarled in Italian, stepping past the splintered doorframe. He raised the barrel of his weapon directly at his sister-in-law's chest. "Even without a voice, you manage to poison my men against me."
Rosa didn't flinch. She raised her shotgun, pointing it squarely at his forehead. But Salvatore was faster; with a vicious sweep of his arm, he struck the barrel aside, knocking the antique weapon from her hands. The shotgun fired into the ceiling, showering us in plaster dust.
Salvatore grabbed Rosa by the throat, shoving her back against the mahogany desk. "Where is your golden boy now, old woman? Where is Dante?"
"Let her go!" I screamed, lunging forward with a heavy brass desk lamp.
Salvatore backhanded me without even looking, the force of his strike sending me crashing against the stone hearth. My head slammed against the marble, and my vision blurred into black spots as blood trickled down my temple.
Salvatore tightened his grip around Rosa’s neck, raising his weapon to finish her.
Then, a deafening shot cracked through the room.
Salvatore froze. His eyes went wide with shock as a dark red spot bloomed in the center of his chest. He staggered backward, his grip slipping from Rosa’s throat, and collapsed heavily onto the floorboards.
Behind him stood Dante, his tuxedo shredded, his face streaked with soot and blood, holding a smoking handgun. He dropped the weapon, rushed forward, and caught his mother just as she collapsed to her knees, gasping for air.
"Mother," Dante choked out, pulling her tightly against his chest.
Rosa rested her trembling hand against his bloody cheek, smiling faintly through her tears. Then, with her remaining strength, she pointed across the room toward where I lay against the hearth.
May you like
Dante turned his head. Through my fading consciousness, I saw him rush toward me, his dark eyes wide with an emotion I had never seen in him before: pure, unadulterated fear.
"Nora," he murmured, his large, warm hand cupping the side of my face as the room spun into darkness. "Stay with me. Nora!"
