Chapter 6 - The Traitor Inside
The peace of the estate shattered on a Tuesday in late November.
Lauren was in the kitchen, preparing a special sterilized formula for Matteo, when the house's internal alarms began to wail—a high-pitched, deafening shriek that turned her blood to ice.
Outside the windows, the sound of rapid gunfire erupted near the main gate.
"Miss Hayes! Move now!" Marcus burst into the kitchen, his automatic weapon drawn, his face slick with sweat. He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the stairs. "The perimeter is breached. Moretti’s men bypassed the electronic gates. Someone gave them the master codes."
"Where’s Isabella? Where’s the baby?" Lauren screamed over the din of the alarms.
"Alessandro is already upstairs. Move!"
They ran up the grand staircase just as a heavy explosion rocked the front foyer, blowing out the stained-glass windows and filling the air with white smoke and flying debris. Shouts and curses echoed from below as Cassano’s guards engaged the intruders.
Lauren scrambled into the nursery. Alessandro was there, his jacket gone, his white shirt stained with blood from a grazing wound on his forearm. He was holding Isabella behind him with one hand, a heavy pistol in the other. Matteo was screaming in his crib, terrified by the noise.
"The safe room," Alessandro ordered Marcus, his eyes tracking the door. "Take Isabella and the boy. Now."
"What about you, boss?" Marcus asked.
"I’m going to find the rat who sold the codes," Alessandro said, his face twisted into a mask of pure, homicidal fury.
Lauren didn't wait for them to argue. She lunged into the crib, grabbing Matteo and wrapping him in a thick insulated blanket. She held him tight against her chest, her body shielding his tiny frame.
As they moved toward the hidden door behind the bookshelf, the nursery door was blown off its hinges.
Three men in black tactical gear stormed in. Marcus opened fire instantly, dropping the first two, but the third man managed to fire a blind spray into the room before he fell.
A sharp, agonizing pain flared in Lauren’s side.
She stumbled, her knees giving out, but she refused to drop the baby. She twisted her body as she fell, landing hard on her shoulder on the thick carpet, keeping Matteo safely nestled in her arms.
"Lauren!" Alessandro’s voice roared through the smoke. It wasn't the voice of a calm crime boss; it was a sound of raw, unadulterated panic.
Through a blur of sudden, blinding pain, Lauren saw Alessandro sprint across the room. He didn't look at the dead intruders. He knelt beside her, his large hands frantically checking her side, where a dark crimson stain was quickly spreading across her blue scrubs.
"Marcus, clear the hallway!" Alessandro screamed, his voice cracking. He lifted Lauren into his arms, baby and all, ignoring his own bleeding arm. "Stay with me, Lauren. Look at me. Keep your eyes on me."
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"The... the baby," Lauren whispered, her vision beginning to gray at the edges. "Is he... okay?"
"He’s fine. You saved him again," Alessandro said, his voice rough with an emotion she had never heard in him before. He carried her down the hidden stairs toward the fortified medical bay beneath the house. "You don't get to die in this house, Lauren. Do you hear me? I don't give permission for you to die."
