Chapter 8 - The Viper's Last Strike
The panic that had momentarily left the ballroom returned with the force of a hurricane.
Several socialite women screamed, dropping to the floor behind the heavy banquet tables as bodyguards drew their weapons in unison.
Luca did not flinch; his reaction was instant, cold, and calculated.
“Marco, seal the master suite!” Luca roared, his voice cutting through the rising hysteria like a battle horn.
“Get to Lily! NOW!”
Marco bolted toward the private staircase with four heavily armed men, their boots thundering across the marble.
Vanessa was not trying to escape the estate.
She knew that outside those high iron gates, every cop, every criminal, and every street camera would be hunting her down.
She had lost her fortune.
She had lost her social standing.
She had lost the most powerful man in Chicago.
Now, driven completely insane by humiliation and rage, she wanted only one thing: mutually assured destruction.
Luca drew his Kimber 1911 pistol, checking the chamber with a single, practiced flick of his wrist.
“Everyone stay where you are,” Luca commanded the guests, his voice carrying the authority of an absolute monarch.
“If anyone moves toward the private wing, my guards will shoot you on sight.”
He didn't wait for his men to flank him; Luca charged up the east wing service stairs with lethal, silent speed.
The east wing was dark, the lighting fixtures having been smashed by a heavy object.
The smell of ozone and copper hung in the air.
Luca moved down the long corridor, his weapon raised, his senses tuned to the slightest vibration in the floorboards.
He passed the crumpled body of the security guard who had been guarding the armory door.
The guard was alive, groaning and clutching a deep puncture wound in his neck caused by a jagged shard of porcelain.
The armory door hung wide open; a small submachine gun and three magazines were missing from the wall rack.
Luca’s jaw set into iron.
Vanessa had grown up in an aristocratic family that practiced tactical shooting as a sport; she knew how to pull a trigger.
Suddenly, from the end of the dark hallway near the private nursery, the harsh, deafening sound of automatic gunfire erupted.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Wood splinters and drywall exploded into the hallway as a hail of nine-millimeter rounds tore through the air.
Luca flattened his back against the wall, the bullets whistling inches from his face, showering him with plaster dust.
“LUCA!” Vanessa’s voice echoed down the corridor, screeching with the manic fury of a dying demon.
“You took everything from me! You made me a laughingstock in front of the entire city!”
She fired another burst through the wooden double doors of the nursery, the muzzle flash illuminating her grotesque, blood-streaked face.
“If I can’t have your empire, then neither will that little whore of a daughter!” she shrieked.
Inside the nursery, Lily’s terrified scream pierced through the gunfire.
Dr. Rossi had barricaded the heavy oak interior door, but the high-caliber rounds were chewing through the wood like termites.
Luca’s vision turned completely crimson with rage.
He didn't wait for backup.
He didn't wait for body armor.
He stepped directly out from behind the corner into the open hallway, his matte-black pistol raised at eye level.
Vanessa spun around, her eyes wild, her teeth bared, bringing the barrel of the submachine gun directly toward Luca’s chest.
“DIE, YOU BASTARD!” she screamed, her finger tightening on the trigger.
BANG!
BANG!
Two shots rang out in near-perfect synchronization.
Luca’s first round struck the receiver of Vanessa’s weapon, instantly shattering the internal firing pin and jamming the bolt.
His second round struck Vanessa directly in her right shoulder, spinning her around with devastating kinetic force.
The submachine gun flew from her shattered grip, clattering harmlessly against the baseboard.
Vanessa crashed against the nursery door, screaming in agony as blood gushed from her shoulder, soaking the torn emerald silk of her dress.
She collapsed onto her knees, clutching her ruined arm, looking up at Luca through strands of sweaty, tangled hair.
Luca walked toward her with slow, agonizingly steady steps, his smoking gun pointed directly between her eyes.
“Please…” Vanessa choked out, the manic fury suddenly vanishing, replaced by the pathetic, primal fear of impending death.
“Luca… don't… I loved you…”
Luca stopped one foot in front of her, his shadow completely blotting out the emergency hallway lights.
“You never loved me, Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a register so cold it sounded like an ancient curse.
“You loved the power. You loved the blood money. And you thought you could step on my child to keep it.”
Vanessa wept, shaking her head frantically as the cold steel barrel of the pistol pressed firmly against the center of her forehead.
“Don't do it, Don Moretti!” a soft voice called out from behind him.
Luca paused, his finger resting lightly on the two-pound match trigger.
He glanced over his shoulder.
Sofia was standing at the end of the hallway, supported by Aunt Carmela, her bandaged arm held tightly against her chest.
“Don’t let Lily hear another gunshot, sir,” Sofia said softly, her eyes full of wisdom beyond her nineteen years.
“She has heard enough violence tonight to last a lifetime.”
“Let the law take this monster away to rot in a hole where she belongs. Lily needs her father whole, not stained with more blood.”
Luca looked back down at Vanessa, whose eyes were wide with desperate, pleading hope.
For three agonizing seconds, the fate of Vanessa Sterling hung on the edge of a single millimeter of trigger pressure.
Then, slowly, deliberately, Luca lowered the weapon.
Vanessa let out a massive, sobbing gasp of air, collapsing forward onto the bloody floorboards.
Luca looked at Marco, who had just arrived with four tactical officers.
“Call the FBI,” Luca commanded coldly.
“Give them the offshore account numbers. Give them the video recordings. Give them the blueprints she sold to the Volkov syndicate.”
“Let the federal government bury her in a supermax facility for thirty years for treason and attempted kidnapping.”
Luca looked down at the broken socialite one last time.
May you like
“Death would have been too quick for you, Vanessa,” Luca whispered.
“Enjoy spending the rest of your youth looking at concrete walls, remembering the night you lost everything.”
