Chapter 9 - The Ambush Begins Again|
The first gunshot struck the window.
Salvatore grabbed my arm and pulled me behind the heavy desk as glass sprayed across the floor. Rocco shouted from the hallway, followed by the sharp crack of return fire.
“Stay down!” Salvatore ordered.
“I am down!”
“Stay farther down!”
I pressed myself against the floor while he covered the side of my head with his arm. For one absurd second, I noticed that he smelled faintly of cedar and antiseptic.
Then another shot tore through the room.
Voss had disappeared.
“Where is he?” I shouted.
Salvatore looked toward the doorway.
“He was beside the cabinet.”
A shadow moved across the hall. Salvatore drew his weapon, but before he could fire, the shadow stumbled into the room.
It was Voss.
Blood soaked his sleeve.
“They're not here for you,” he gasped. “They're here for the envelope.”
Salvatore caught him before he fell.
“Who sent them?”
Voss shook his head.
“I don't know. I swear.”
Rocco rushed in with the other guard.
“The attackers are retreating. One vehicle, possibly two. We have their license plate.”
“Call an ambulance,” I said.
Voss looked at me with desperate eyes.
“Don't let Carmine get the inventory number.”
Salvatore froze.
“Why would my brother want it?”
“Because it leads to the original supplier. And the supplier can prove who ordered the device.”
Voss struggled to breathe.
“Your father hid the component. If you find it, you'll learn who paid for the attack.”
I pressed a folded cloth against his wound while Rocco called emergency services. I was a dentist, not a trauma surgeon, but I knew enough to understand that Voss needed immediate professional care.
Salvatore knelt beside him.
“Who gave the order?”
Voss looked at him, his face gray.
“I don't know the name. Carmine handled the money. He said the buyer was someone inside your own family.”
Then his eyes rolled back.
We kept pressure on the wound until paramedics arrived. Voss survived, but the police took him to a secure hospital unit for surgery and questioning.
Outside, Salvatore stood beside the car, staring at the envelope.
“Your brother has been lying to me for eight years,” he said.
“That's what Voss claims.”
“You heard him.”
“I heard a wounded man accuse someone who might be able to silence him. We need corroboration.”
Salvatore looked at me sharply.
“You still defend Carmine?”
“No. I defend the difference between suspicion and proof.”
He turned away.
For the first time, I saw how difficult it was for him to separate family from loyalty. He had built an empire by treating trust as a weakness, yet he had given his brother the one thing he rarely offered anyone: unquestioned faith.
Rocco approached with his phone.
“We recovered footage from a traffic camera. The getaway vehicle belongs to a security contractor.”
“Which contractor?” Salvatore asked.
Rocco hesitated.
“Lombardi Protective Services.”
Carmine's company.
Salvatore's expression became terrifyingly calm.
“Bring my brother to the mansion.”
“And if he refuses?” Rocco asked.
“Then we ask him why.”
I stepped between them.
“No kidnapping. No beating him until he says what you want to hear. If he's guilty, evidence will prove it.”
Salvatore studied me, then nodded once.
“Fine. We do it your way.”
We returned to the mansion shortly before midnight.
Carmine was waiting in the foyer.
He looked at Salvatore, then at the envelope in my hand.
“You went to see Voss,” he said.
Salvatore stopped.
“How did you know?”
Carmine's smile was thin.
“Because, brother, someone has been watching you since the moment that dentist walked into your life.”
May you like
His eyes shifted to me.
“And now the people who killed your father may come for her, too.”
