Chapter 6
The next three days passed in a blur of hidden glances,
stolen touches in the dim corridors, and a deepening, fragile intimacy that felt both terrifying and inevitable.
The triplets noticed the change immediately. Children possess an uncanny radar for emotional shifts; by Thursday morning, the youngest was giggling every time Dominic handed me the orange juice pitcher at breakfast, whispering secrets to her sisters behind her napkin.
Even Dominic’s stern expression softened around the edges when he looked at us. But in the shadows of the criminal underworld, peace was always the precursor to a storm.
It happened on a rainy Friday afternoon.
Dominic had left the estate early to attend a high-level summit with the remaining capos in Manhattan to neutralize Santoro’s growing rebellion. He had left double the security detail around the mansion, instructing Rosa and me to stay inside the reinforced panic room wing if any alarms tripped.
I was in the second-floor nursery helping the girls paint watercolor flowers when the lights in the mansion suddenly flickered and died.
A heavy, low-frequency hum vibrated through the floorboards. The backup generator kicked in three seconds later, bathing the hallways in a sickly amber emergency glow.
Then came the sound.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Muffled gunshots from the front gates.
Rosa burst into the nursery, her face completely drained of color, clutching a heavy iron fireplace poker in her shaking hands.
"Clara! They breached the perimeter!" Rosa gasped, her voice trembling. "The south gate guards are down! They're coming through the glass doors!"
My blood turned to ice. Santoro hadn't waited for the commission. He had launched a full-scale assault on the mansion while Dominic was trapped across the river in Manhattan.
"Listen to me, Rosa," I said, my voice dropping into the steady, unyielding tone I had learned from surviving my father's auto shop crashes. "Take the girls through the secret panel behind the bookshelf in the master study. Lock the reinforced door from the inside and do not open it for anyone—not even me—unless I give you the password Silver Moon."
"Clara, what about you?!" Rosa cried, grabbing my arm. "You can't stay out here!"
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"If I run, they’ll track the children," I said fiercely, grabbing a heavy brass candlestick from the hallway table. "Go. Now!"
As Rosa ushered the weeping, terrified triplets down the hall toward the master study, heavy boots thundered up the grand staircase.
