Chapter 8 - Into the Light
Salvatore and Dante worked in seamless synchronization to hoist Marco’s weakened frame over the marble threshold of the hatch.
The young man’s knees folded the moment his bare feet touched the warm, heated stone of the mansion’s entrance hall.
Salvatore caught his son under the arms, lifting the twenty-three-year-old effortlessly against his broad chest.
Marco felt impossibly light, his ribs pressing sharply through the filthy fabric of his wrinkled dress shirt.
Elena dropped to her knees beside them, her trembling arms encircling her brother's waist in an embrace of sheer desperation.
"You're alive, Marco... oh God, you're alive," she sobbed, pressing her cheek against his dusty shoulder.
Marco rested his heavy head against Elena’s chestnut hair, his weak hand patting her back with trembling fingers.
"I thought she killed you, El," Marco whispered, his voice cracking with the ghost of a thousand subterranean terrors.
"She came down three hours ago... she told me you were going over the balcony tonight," he revealed, his breath ragged.
Elena’s blood ran cold in her veins as she realized the calculated, premeditated atrocity Victoria had orchestrated.
The attack on the staircase had not been a sudden crime of passion; it had been an execution scheduled to the exact minute.
Salvatore’s dark eyes hardened until they resembled black flint, absorbing the horrifying truth of his son’s revelation.
He knelt on the marble between his two children, wrapping his long arms around both of them in an unbreakable fortress of protection.
He kissed the top of Marco’s dirty forehead, the scent of the tomb burning his nostrils and searing his soul with vengeance.
"Dante, fetch the medical kit and clean water," Salvatore ordered, his voice remarkably quiet, carrying the weight of impending doom.
"Right away, boss," Dante answered, bowing his head before retreating swiftly toward the private study wing.
Salvatore turned his gaze toward the center of the foyer where Victoria remained sprawled upon the polished floor.
Her emerald gown was covered in dust from the floorboards, her breath hitching in her throat as she met her husband’s eyes.
May you like
She looked from the bruised, reddened wrist of the daughter to the starved, hollow face of the son she had tried to bury alive.
There was no room for mercy in the vast, echoing hall, only the cold reckoning of a family she had failed to destroy.
