Chapter 2 - THE MEN AT THE GATEThe first bullet entered through a stained-glass panel above the ballroom doors.
The second buried itself in a marble column.
By the third, every person in Palazzo Belladonna understood that the threat was no longer theoretical.
Luca shoved me flat behind the cutting table.
“Stay there.”
“I’m not planning to argue.”
“Good.”
He disappeared above me.
I heard chairs overturn, women screaming, security guards shouting instructions, and Marco’s voice barking into a radio.
“Lock the east corridor! Nobody leaves without verification!”
Another burst of gunfire rattled outside.
I pressed both hands over my ears.
The strange part was that I didn’t think about dying.
I thought about my mother.
About the chicken soup she had probably left in my refrigerator that morning.
About my younger sister, Sofia, complaining that I worked too much.
About the text message I hadn’t answered because Bastien had demanded that every seamstress surrender her phone during the fitting.
People imagined dramatic final thoughts.
Mine were embarrassingly ordinary.
Then someone grabbed my ankle.
I screamed.
A hand covered my mouth.
“Quiet!”
Bastien.
He had crawled beneath the opposite side of the table.
His expensive glasses were gone. Blood ran down his cheek from a cut near his hairline.
“Elena,” he whispered.
“What?”
“My wife.”
Another shot cracked through glass.
Bastien flinched.
“They’ll kill her now.”
“Who are they?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“You knew enough to put a tracker into Luca’s jacket.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“They sent instructions.”
“How?”
“A burner phone.”
“Where?”
“My workshop.”
“Does Luca know?”
“No.”
“Then tell him.”
“He’ll kill me.”
I stared at him.
“They might kill all of us.”
That landed.
Bastien squeezed his eyes shut.
For six years, I had believed he was incapable of humility.
Now he looked seventy years old.
“I was supposed to remove the red thread.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I marked the section before opening the cuff. Old habit. Elena used to tease me because I still use your father’s system.”
My father.
I stared at him.
“You knew my dad?”
Bastien looked at me as though he’d said too much.
Another explosion shook the room.
Not gunfire.
Something heavier.
The chandelier swayed.
“Move!” Marco shouted.
Hands pulled us from beneath the table.
Two guards rushed Bastien toward an interior corridor.
Luca caught my arm.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Then walk.”
The confidence in his voice was unnerving.
His white jacket was off now, thrown somewhere behind him. He wore only the vest and shirt, both dusted with glass.
We moved through a narrow service hallway with six guards surrounding us.
Celeste was ahead, clutching her skirt.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
“Safe room,” Marco said.
“I want my father.”
“He’s being secured separately.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“No one asked what was good enough.”
She turned sharply.
“Excuse me?”
Marco ignored her.
We reached a carved walnut door.
A guard entered a code.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Red light.
“System’s down.”
Luca cursed.
“Manual key.”
The guard searched his pocket.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“The key’s gone.”
Everybody stopped.
Marco grabbed him.
“Where is it?”
“I had it this morning.”
“That answer gets people killed.”
“I swear—”
Luca raised his hand.
Silence.
He looked back toward the ballroom.
Then at me.
More specifically, at my waist.
“Your scissors.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Give me your scissors.”
I handed them over.
He inserted one blade into the narrow brass emergency panel beside the safe-room door and twisted.
“You know how to open that?” I asked.
“My grandfather built this palace.”
The panel snapped free.
Behind it were mechanical tumblers.
Luca examined them.
“I need something thin.”
I pulled a steel boning strip from my sewing kit.
Celeste stared.
“You brought corset wire to a mafia shootout?”
“I brought it to a fitting.”
Marco almost smiled.
Almost.
Luca used the steel strip to release the locking mechanism.
The door opened.
Everyone rushed inside.
The room resembled a small command center.
Steel walls.
Monitors.
Medical supplies.
Weapons secured behind glass.
A refrigerator.
Emergency communication systems.
Luca waited until everyone was inside, then closed the door.
Silence fell.
Not complete silence.
Muted gunfire continued beyond the steel.
Marco activated the monitors.
Half the screens were black.
The others displayed security-camera footage from around the estate.
Cars burned at the north gate.
Armed men in masks moved through the gardens.
But they weren’t advancing randomly.
They traveled with purpose.
They knew the layout.
Every camera.
Every choke point.
Every guard rotation.
I looked at Luca.
“The suit wasn’t enough.”
He was already thinking the same thing.
“No.”
“They had inside information.”
Marco turned from the monitors.
“Much more than inside information.”
Celeste wrapped her arms around herself.
“Who are the Orphans?”
Nobody answered.
“Luca?”
He looked at her.
“It’s an old name.”
“For what?”
“A group that shouldn’t exist anymore.”
“That explains nothing.”
“It’s all I have time to explain.”
Bastien suddenly spoke.
“They know the wedding schedule.”
Every eye turned toward him.
He swallowed.
“The people who took Elena knew exactly when I would be alone in the workshop. They knew the final fitting was today. They knew Luca would wear the completed jacket for at least twenty minutes while photographs were taken.”
Marco moved toward him.
“You’re remembering this now?”
“They also knew Isabella would be there.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Bastien looked at me.
“I didn’t tell you because I thought it was a threat designed to frighten me.”
“What did they say?”
His voice became smaller.
“They told me, ‘If the Vale girl notices the thread, make sure she keeps quiet.’”
“The Vale girl?”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
I stared at Bastien.
“My name is Isabella Marin.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Bastien.”
Still nothing.
“Why did they call me Vale?”
The older tailor sat down heavily.
“I was hoping we’d never have this conversation.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“What conversation?”
Before he answered, one of the monitors changed.
A masked man had entered the ballroom.
He walked directly toward the abandoned jacket lying on the floor.
He picked it up.
Checked the cuff.
Saw the torn lining.
Then slowly turned toward the security camera.
Even through the mask, I felt him looking at us.
He lifted one gloved hand.
Three fingers.
Then two.
Then one.
The safe-room lights went red.
A mechanical voice announced:
“EXTERNAL OVERRIDE DETECTED.”
Marco swore.
“They’re in the security network.”
Bastien whispered, “God help us.”
The masked man on the screen removed something from his pocket.
A small remote control.
Luca looked at the monitor.
Then at the reinforced door.
“What does that remote do?” I asked.
Marco was already checking the system.
His face went pale.
“It controls the fire suppression.”
“That doesn’t sound terrible.”
“It does when the suppression system is connected to the ventilation.”
A hiss came from above us.
Celeste looked up.
White vapor began entering through the ceiling vents.
Bastien coughed.
“What is that?”
Luca pulled his shirt over his nose.
“Not fire suppressant.”
Marco checked the panel.
“Gas.”
Panic erupted.
One guard began trying the locked door.
Another searched the medical cabinet for masks.
There weren’t enough.
My lungs tightened.
Luca took the only full-face respirator from the wall.
I expected him to put it on.
Instead he shoved it into my hands.
“Wear it.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“There are other people here.”
“And right now you’re the only person who can tell me how someone got into that suit.”
“I already told you.”
“No.”
He leaned close.
“You told me how you found the tracker.”
His eyes flicked toward Bastien.
“But he just called you something you don’t understand.”
The gas thickened.
Bastien slid against the wall.
“I’m sorry, Isabella.”
“For what?”
His eyelids drooped.
“For promising your father.”
My heart stopped.
“What did you promise him?”
Bastien looked at Luca.
And with the last of his strength before losing consciousness, he whispered:
“Her father didn’t die in an accident.”
Then he collapsed.
I woke with an oxygen mask over my face and Luca Moretti’s hand gripping my shoulder.
“Breathe.”
I coughed violently.
The safe-room door stood open.
Fresh air poured through portable ventilation hoses.
Men moved around us.
“How long?”
“Four minutes.”
“What happened?”
“Marco cut the ventilation manually.”
I looked around.
Bastien lay on the floor receiving oxygen.
Celeste sat in a corner, furious but alive.
Nobody had died.
Yet.
I ripped off my mask.
“What did Bastien mean?”
Luca’s expression gave nothing away.
“You heard him.”
“My father died in a warehouse fire.”
“Apparently not by accident.”
“You know something.”
“I know your father’s name.”
That knocked the breath from me harder than the gas.
“You knew him?”
“No.”
“But you recognized it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He sat back on his heels.
“My father kept records.”
“Records of what?”
“People.”
“What kind of people?”
“People who helped us. People who betrayed us. People we owed.”
I stood.
My knees nearly failed.
Luca caught me.
I jerked away.
“Don’t.”
His expression hardened, but he released me.
“What was my father doing in those records?”
“That is what I intend to find out.”
“No. You tell me now.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“I mean the records are not here.”
“Where?”
He looked toward the door.
“Under the cathedral where I’m supposed to get married tomorrow.”
I laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“Of course they are.”
Luca almost responded.
Then Marco rushed into the room carrying a tablet.
“Attackers are retreating.”
“Casualties?”
“Three guards injured. Two attackers dead. We captured one.”
“Good.”
“That isn’t the bad part.”
Luca’s stare sharpened.
Marco turned the tablet around.
On the screen was an image from a traffic camera.
A black van.
Timestamp: eleven minutes earlier.
The van was leaving the city.
In the passenger seat sat a woman with silver hair.
Bastien saw the picture.
He tore away his oxygen mask.
“Elena!”
His wife.
Alive.
But in the driver's seat was someone else.
A man whose face Luca clearly recognized.
Luca went completely still.
Marco whispered, “It’s impossible.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
Neither brother answered.
“Who?”
Luca’s voice was quiet.
“My uncle.”
I frowned.
“That’s bad?”
“He died seventeen years ago.”
The room fell silent.
Marco enlarged the photograph.
The older man behind the wheel wore a black suit.
On his wrist was a red cord.
The same shade as the thread I had cut.
Luca stared at it.
Then said the words that changed everything.
“The Orphans didn’t come back.”
He looked directly at me.
“They never left.”
May you like
And suddenly tomorrow’s wedding wasn’t a celebration.
It was bait.
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