Chapter 7 - Blood Ties and Betrayal
Elena’s thin, trembling fingers curled around Dante’s hand. Her skin was freezing, but the warmth of Dante’s tears seemed to shock her back into reality.
With his tactical knife, Dante sliced through the heavy leather restraints binding her wrists and ankles. Elena sat up slowly, swaying from weakness, her hands reaching out to touch his face, tracing his cheekbones, his jaw, his brow.
“You have Daddy’s eyes,” she whispered, her voice growing clearer. “He cried the night they took me. He held me by the car and told me to be brave. Mommy slapped him. She told him men who weep don't rule empires.”
A sharp scream shattered the moment.
Down the hallway, Isabella cried out in agony, sliding from the armchair onto the floor, curling into a tight ball.
“Isabella!” Dante sprang to his feet, rushing to his wife’s side.
Elena followed unsteadily, holding onto the hallway handrail for support. She stopped beside Isabella, looking down at the pregnant woman with wide, perceptive eyes.
“Her water broke,” Elena said, her voice strangely calm, carrying the instincts of someone who had spent decades observing medical procedures in psychiatric wards. “The baby is crowning, Dante. There is no time for an ambulance. She needs to deliver now.”
Dante knelt beside Isabella, his heart pounding harder than it ever had in any gunfight. “Isabella, can you hear me?”
“Dante… it hurts… please…” she sobbed, clutching his hands with bruising strength.
Elena knelt down beside Isabella, her touch surprisingly gentle as she placed a cool hand on Isabella’s burning forehead. “Breathe slowly, little sister. Deep breaths. The pain is just the door opening. You have to let the door open.”
Isabella looked into Elena’s face, recognizing the family resemblance instantly. “Elena…?”
“Yes,” Elena murmured softly. “Your father was Arthur Vance, wasn't he?”
Isabella nodded weakly through her tears.
“He was a kind man,” Elena said, her eyes distant with memory. “Before Mommy poisoned him, he gave me a peppermint from his pocket. He told me that truth is like light—it hurts your eyes at first, but without it, you spend your whole life walking in the dark. Your father was a good man. And you are safe now.”
Footsteps pounded up the stairwell.
Marco burst onto the floor, his weapon drawn, his breathing labored. “Boss! State police are ten minutes out, but we’ve got a problem. Victoria’s personal helicopter just touched down on the front lawn. She didn't trust Cross to do the job. She came herself.”
Dante’s expression turned into a mask of pure, unadulterated vengeance.
“Take Elena into Room 4B,” Dante ordered, lifting Isabella into his arms and carrying her into the sterile patient room. He placed her on the clean bed, pulling fresh linens over her. “Elena, can you help her deliver?”
Elena looked down at her hands, then nodded firmly. “I watched the midwives in the lower ward for six years. I know what to do. Protect the door, Dante.”
Dante turned to Marco. “Give me your extra magazine.”
Marco handed it over.
Dante stepped out into the hallway, pulling the heavy double doors of Room 4B shut behind him. He stood in the center of the corridor, his Glock rested casually by his side, waiting in the silence.
At the far end of the hall, the elevator doors slid open.
Victoria Moretti stepped out.
She wore an immaculate full-length black cashmere coat with an ermine collar, her silver-blonde hair pinned up in a flawless chignon. Behind her were four private military contractors clad in full tactical gear, assault rifles held at the low ready.
Victoria walked forward, her designer heels clicking rhythmically against the blood-spattered linoleum floor.
She stopped twenty paces away from Dante, looking at her son with an expression of aristocratic disappointment, as if he were an unruly schoolboy who had ruined a dinner party.
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“Look at you, Dante,” Victoria sighed, pulling off her black leather gloves. “Dressed in blood, standing guard in a madhouse. Is this what the Moretti name has been reduced to?”
***
