Chapter 87 - The Broken Bastion
"Get up, Vincent! You have to get up!" I knelt beside him, pressing both hands against the ragged tear in his side. Hot blood welled between my fingers, slick and horrifyingly warm.
Maya was crying openly now, sitting curled on the stone floor with her hands pressed over her ears. "Uncle Vincent... Mommy, please make him stop bleeding!"
"I'm fine, piccolo," Vincent rasped, forcing a grimace that was meant to be a reassuring smile. He tried to push himself up, but his elbows buckled, a guttural groan ripping from his throat. "Elena... jacket pocket. The satellite phone."
I reached into his tailored coat, my blood-stained hands fumbling until I felt the heavy, encrypted casing. I pulled it out and shoved it into his palm.
Vincent thumbed speed dial on speaker. It rang once.
"Boss?" Mateo's rough voice barked over the line amidst the sound of screeching tires and automatic gunfire. "The outer perimeter is breached! It's not Lorenzo's men! Black tactical gear, unmarked SUVs—they're hitting the main gate with heavy suppressors! Who the hell are they?"
"Julian," Vincent choked out.
A stunned silence hung on the line for half a second before Mateo cursed violently. "Julian is dead!"
"He's in Palermo," Vincent wheezed. "His contractors are here for the child. Evacuate the lower courtyard. Bring the armored Rover to the service tunnel beneath the wine cellar. Now!"
"Two minutes! Move!"
The line went dead.
"Can you stand?" I asked, hooking my arm beneath Vincent's shoulder.
"I don't have a choice," he muttered. He leaned his immense weight onto me, his muscles rigid with sheer agony. Every breath he drew sounded like glass scraping inside his ribs.
Together, moving at an agonizingly slow pace, we dragged ourselves down the narrow, vaulted service tunnel beneath the estate. Maya held onto the belt of my jeans, her wide, tear-filled eyes darting at every flickering overhead bulb.
The sound of muffled explosions vibrated through the stone above us. Julian's assault team was systematically dismantling the estate's remaining security. It was ruthless, surgical, and utterly overwhelming.
"Why does he want her?" I demanded, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I bore half of Vincent's dead weight. "He abandoned her! Five years ago, I received that baby in a nondescript clinic in Zurich. An anonymous trust funded everything. I thought... God, Vincent, you told me Lorenzo ordered her hidden!"
Vincent let out a wet, bitter laugh. "Lorenzo didn't even know she existed until three months ago. That's why Julian faked his death. He knew Father was going to execute him for skimming the syndicate's core accounts. Julian had a child with a woman outside the families... and when the woman died in childbirth, Julian knew Lorenzo would use the baby as leverage to execute him."
"So he dumped her on me?" Rage flared hot in my chest, cutting through the terror. "I gave up my life! I lived in shadows, running from city to city, thinking I was protecting an orphan from a monster—and the monster was her own father?"
"Julian didn't dump her," Vincent groaned as we reached the heavy iron door leading to the subterranean garage. "He hid her until he could consolidate power. You were never meant to be a mother, Elena. In Julian's eyes... you were just an unpaid vault."
The truth struck me like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.
Before I could speak, the iron door rattled. Vincent raised his gun with trembling hands, stepping in front of Maya and me despite his catastrophic injuries.
May you like
The door swung inward.
"Don't shoot!" Mateo shouted, barreling through, his tactical vest scorched and his face streaked with soot. He caught Vincent under the other arm. "Car's running. But we've got a tail. We have to disappear into Florence right now."
