Chapter 23 The Siege of the Vault
The voice on the intercom wasn't a man’s; it was a serpent sliding through silk. Lisa stood in the vault's center, palms pressed hard against her stomach as if she could pull the baby deeper into her own bones to hide him. The bunker’s silence, which had felt like a sanctuary an hour ago, was now a suffocating weight.
"Go away!" she screamed at the speaker, her voice cracking. "Silvio will kill you for this!"
A soft, mocking chuckle filled the small room. "Silvio is ten miles away, trapped in a warehouse district I’ve turned into a graveyard for his men. He’s a dog chasing his own tail while I walk through his front door. Now, be a good daughter and open the lock. Or don't. The torch doesn't care about the thickness of steel."
Lisa stared at the door. She could hear it now a distant, rhythmic clanging. They were at the upper hatch, using heavy equipment to bypass the biometric scanners. Silvio had said this place was built for the end of the world, but he hadn't accounted for a traitor who knew the bypass codes.
She had to move. She couldn't sit here like a lamb waiting for the knife.
She scrambled to the back, where Silvio kept the emergency supplies. Her fingers brushed past bandages and water until she found a heavy, black tactical case. She flipped the latches. Inside sat a short-barreled shotgun and two boxes of shells.
Her hands shook so violently she dropped the first shell, the brass casing ringing against the floor. "Focus, Lisa," she whispered, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps. "Focus for the baby."
She remembered Silvio’s hands on hers in the woods, the way he’d shown her how to brace her shoulder and pull the slide back. Chack-chack. The sound of the weapon chambering was the loudest thing she’d ever heard. It was the sound of a victim deciding to become a hunter.
Suddenly, a massive boom rocked the room. Dust rained from the vents. Red emergency lights began to pulse, casting the vault in a bloody glow. The door held, but the monitor showed a white-hot line forming around the edges of the steel. They were thermite-cutting the hinges.
Lisa dragged a heavy oak table toward the center of the room, flipping it to create a barricade. She crouched behind it, the cold metal of the gun pressed against her cheek.
"Silvio," she prayed, closing her eyes. "Please. Come back."
Miles away, through the static of the comms, she imagined him. She saw the rage in his eyes, the way he would be tearing through the city like a force of nature. She had to give him time. Every minute she held this door was a minute closer to his return.
The heat rose. The smell of burning metal turned her stomach. Then, with a screeching groan of twisting iron, the massive door listed forward. It hit the floor with a deafening crash that sent a cloud of soot into the room.
Through the smoke, a figure stepped into the light. He wasn't wearing tactical gear. He was dressed in a tailored grey suit, his white hair slicked back, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Her biological father, Don Lorenzo, looked at the room with a bored expression.
"A vault? Really, Lisa? How very dramatic," he said, stepping over the threshold.
"Stay back!" Lisa shouted from behind the table, leveling the shotgun.
Lorenzo stopped, his eyes widening in genuine surprise. Then he laughed. "Look at you. The little bird found her beak. Silvio really has ruined you, hasn't he? You were supposed to be a piece of art, a quiet bargaining chip. Now you’re just another thug in a dress."
"I’m a mother," Lisa hissed, her finger tightening on the trigger. "And if you take another step, I’ll show you exactly what that means."
"Kill her," Lorenzo said, his voice flat, as he stepped aside to let his gunmen through.
Lisa didn't think. She squeezed. The recoil slammed into her shoulder, sending a jolt of pain through her back, but the roar of the gun filled the vault. The first man through was thrown backward. She pumped the slide, smoke stinging her eyes, and fired again.
She was screaming now, a raw, primal sound of defiance. She wasn't fighting for a throne. She was fighting for the heartbeats inside her.
But there were too many of them. A bullet chipped the wood of the table, sending splinters into her arm. Another hit the wall behind her. She was pinned, her ears ringing, the smell of gunpowder choking her.
"Enough!" Lorenzo shouted over the gunfire. "I want her alive! The child is no use to me if she’s full of lead!"
The firing stopped. The silence that followed was even more terrifying. Lisa huddled behind the table, her breath hitching. She reached for another shell, but her fingers were slick with sweat. She was out of time.
She heard footsteps approaching. Slow. Measured.
"You have your mother's eyes, Lisa," Lorenzo’s voice was right on the other side of the table. "But you have my coldness. It’s a shame you wasted it on a Moretti."
He reached over the table, grabbing the barrel of the shotgun and wrenching it from her grasp. He tossed it aside like trash and reached down, grabbing her by the hair to pull her up. Lisa cried out, clutching at his wrist, but he was deceptively strong.
"Let’s go. We have a long journey ahead, and I think Silvio would like to see what’s left of his house before I kill him."
But as he dragged her toward the ruined door, a new sound cut through the chaos. It wasn't the sound of a gun. It was the roar of an engine a high-powered Italian beast screaming down the driveway above. Then, the sound of the mansion’s front doors being turned into splinters.
Lisa’s heart leaped. "He’s here."
Lorenzo froze, his eyes darting to the monitor. On the flickering screen, a single black car had smashed through the main foyer. A man stepped out, a submachine gun in each hand, moving with a speed that didn't seem human.
It was Silvio. And he looked like the Devil himself had come to claim his due.
Lorenzo’s grip on Lisa’s hair tightened. "Change of plans," he hissed to his men. "Kill the Don. Now!"