Chapter 73

Aldo

The first explosion shattered the early morning stillness before I’d even made it to my office with a cup of coffee.

The boom shook the entire house like an earthquake, rattled the windows, sent the floor swaying under my feet. My aforementioned coffee tumbled from my hands and shattered to the floor in a splash of ceramic and dark liquid.

Before so much as a thought entered my mind, I was running.

My phone pressed to my ear. Carlo’s number flashed across my screen. Someone yelled at the far end of the estate, but it didn’t matter. I had thoughts only for Layla and Eli.

I had to reach them. Now.

“Vas?” Carlo’s voice cracked through my speaker as I ran. “The hell’s going on? Where are you?”

“Doesn’t matter!” I roared back, my feet never pausing. “I’m going for Layla. You’re in charge. Take the men. Secure the estate. Do whatever it takes.”

“Got it.”

In case he hadn’t gotten the message, I added. “Find whoever just set off a fucking bomb in my house, and kill them!”

The second explosion threw me to my hands and knees on the floor. My phone slid from my fingers, but I snatched it up off the tile. Couldn’t be disconnected.

I was back on my feet and running before I’d fully hit the ground. My nostrils registered a faint pungency of smoke, and in the distance, gunfire cracked beneath the report of my own heart.

“Someone’s trying to get in!” Carlo roared in my ear through the speaker of my phone. “I’m sending men …”

“Do it!” I bellowed back, and I shoved my phone into my pocket as the door to Eli’s bedroom loomed ahead. “Layla! Eli!”

Without pausing my stride, I shouldered my way through the door of that bedroom, my feet skidding on the tile floor as I barged in like a battering ram.

Layla stood by the wardrobe, dragging clothes onto Eli’s small frame. She’d already dressed herself and made it here to our son. Of course she had.

I’d never any doubt she would.

“Any idea what’s going on?” She wrapped an arm around Eli’s narrow shoulders and pulled him against her. The calmness of her voice struck me. The precision of her moments. The way she kept her back to the window, protecting Eli.

This was not the same Layla I’d saved at the hospital, nearly a year ago.

“Best guess?” I shrugged and reached for the gun in my waistband. “Marco’s brought the war to us.”

Layla’s mouth tightened into a tense line. “I was afraid of that.”

“They’re trying to break in. Carlo’s holding the line, but he’ll need me.” I leveled her with a steady gaze. “Will you guard Eli?”

“The basement safe room?” she asked, and my shoulders deflated with relief. She hadn’t protested, hadn’t demanded to be allowed to fight alongside me.

“I’ll cover you,” I said. “Ready?”

Layla hesitated for only a moment before she nodded. “We’re ready.”

“Let’s go.” I took the lead back through the door and into the hall. Layla shadowed close behind me, Eli tucked between us. I didn’t have to turn to know she held her gun down by her side.

As we hurried through the halls, the sounds of battle grew louder. My men shouted orders, their boots thundering across the marble floors. But neither Layla nor Eli faltered or slowed.

At the entry to the reinforced safe room, I keyed in the code, and the door swung open. “Stay here,” I told them both, my eyes darting from Eli to Layla. “Until I come for you.”

“We’ll stay here. Don’t worry about us.” Layla leant in to press a kiss to my mouth. “Be careful.”

“Always am.” I spared her one last look before I raced back down the hall. Towards the fight that needed me.

I headed through the halls, the heavy press of smoke increasing as I approached the scene. The acrid scent of burning wood stung my nostrils. And the patter of gunfire grew to a full-on roar.

Shit. This wasn’t just an attempt. It was a full-on battle. The beginnings of a war.

Someone raced down the hall towards me, but I registered Carlo’s face before I raised my gun. He was panting, face red and streaked with blood and soot. “They’ve got explosives. A lot. They’ve taken out two of the outer walls.”

Dread built an icy inferno in my gut, and I swore under my breath. My mind raced with the boldness of this man—and the clear message he’d come to deliver.

There’s no safe place anymore.

The war had started, and even the heart of my territory could become a battle scene.

Another explosion rocked the estate, nearly sending both Carlo and me from our feet. We took off running in the same instant, towards the sound this time, rather than away from it.

The shouting grew, and I discerned running bodies through the smoke. My gun lifted as I joined the fray. My men ducked behind shattered walls, tucked into slabs of marble, concrete, and heaped drywall for protection against the onslaught.

“There’s so many of them!” someone yelled.

“Where do they keep coming from?”

Gunfire cracked—automatic weapons. On my own fucking estate, in my goddamn home.

I threw myself behind a shattered wall to survey the smoky scene from beyond. Some men lurked behind the guest house—luckily no longer occupied by Layla and Eli. Others, no doubt, took cover in or behind trees.

An AK-47 cracked from near the boathouse. Something exploded out on the edge of the lake.

“Shit. We’re surrounded.” I leapt out from my hiding place to launch a well-aimed attack as a faceless man darted out from behind a tree.

He fell.

I ducked back under cover. Guerilla warfare. In my own goddamn house. What had this world—and this war—come to? Marco had too many men, and they were well equipped, methodical, calculated. And relentless.

The minutes ticked by.

My men and I popped up to take shots when we found the smallest openings, but there was no sign of a letup in the onslaught. Like they could simply wait us out, wear us down.

I believed they could.

“We can’t hold them off much longer!” Carlo shouted, ducking down beside me behind my chosen wall.

“We don’t have a choice,” I replied, my voice grim, roughened by smoke. “We fight until we can’t.”

“Shit,” Carlo muttered. “How much longer can we hold them?”

“I don’t—”

But the roar of an engine from somewhere past the estate stole my words. Some type of large vehicles were approaching the manor—and I had no idea what that meant. They weren’t my men … did Marco have more reinforcements come to further flatten our attack?

Nausea crawled up my throat.

“The hell’s going on?” I ducked out of my cover just enough to watch a fleet of black SUVs barrel onto the estate grounds. Gunfire erupted from opened windows … but no bullets rained down on the manor.

They were aiming at the trees, the boathouse, the guest house—Moretti men.

They were aiming for Marco’s men!

“What the …” Carlo stared as our attackers fled the sudden onslaught of bullets. Ducking between trees, racing—falling.

I couldn’t help the grin that crawled over my face. “The Orlovs! Shit, they’re already making good on their agreement.”

The Orlovs, it seemed, had arrived to turn the tide.