Chapter 8 - The Night the Mansion Burned
For a moment, everything became noise.
Clara screamed.
Luca fired.
I pulled Dominic behind the desk.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“Where?”
“Shoulder.”
Not fatal.
Another shot tore through the bookshelf.
Glass shattered.
Emergency lights failed.
Someone had disabled the backup system.
Professional.
“Clara,” I whispered.
“Here.”
“Stay down.”
Smoke began seeping under the library door.
Fire.
This time real.
My radio crackled.
Static.
Then Matteo's voice.
“Dad?”
Every instinct in my body stopped.
“Matteo?”
“There's smoke.”
I stood.
Luca grabbed my arm.
“Shooter.”
“My son.”
“You run into that hallway, you die.”
“Then move.”
We fired through the doorway and crossed.
The mansion had become a maze of smoke and alarms.
Sprinklers activated too late.
Flames climbed the west staircase.
Someone had set fires in three locations.
This wasn't an assassination anymore.
It was destruction.
Erase evidence.
Kill witnesses.
Burn the ledger.
I shoved it under my jacket.
“Matteo!”
His bedroom was two floors above us.
The elevator was dead.
We took the stairs.
Halfway up, a masked gunman appeared.
Luca fired first.
The man dropped his weapon and fled through a side corridor.
“Bad aim,” I said.
“I hit exactly where I wanted.”
“You missed.”
“I haven't seen you in eight years and you're already criticizing.”
For one insane second, we were brothers again.
Then the ceiling cracked above us.
We ran.
At Matteo's floor, Clara appeared behind us.
I spun.
“What are you doing?”
“Following you.”
“I told you—”
“Save the argument.”
Her face was streaked with soot.
Matteo's bedroom door was blocked by fallen wood.
We pushed together.
“Matteo!”
“Dad!”
His voice came from inside.
Alive.
I pulled harder.
The beam shifted.
Clara squeezed through first.
Smoke poured out.
Seconds later, she reappeared pushing Matteo.
He was coughing but conscious.
I grabbed the wheelchair.
“Go.”
We moved toward the east stairs.
Then Marcus Vane stepped from the smoke.
Gun raised.
Clara froze.
Marcus looked terrible.
Bandaged shoulder.
Bloodshot eyes.
“You should've stayed out of this.”
I positioned myself between him and Matteo.
“You first.”
Marcus smiled.
“Gabriel wants the ledger.”
“Tell Gabriel to come ask.”
“He's waiting.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
That surprised me.
Gabriel Shaw had spent twenty-five years hiding behind contracts.
Now he'd come personally.
The desperate finally become brave when all safer options disappear.
Marcus raised the gun.
Luca appeared behind him.
“Hello, Marcus.”
Marcus turned.
I hit him.
The gun discharged into the ceiling.
Clara pulled Matteo backward.
Luca tackled Marcus.
They crashed into the wall.
I kicked the gun away.
Marcus elbowed Luca and ran toward the stairs.
I started after him.
Matteo shouted.
“Dad!”
I stopped.
That single word saved my life.
A section of burning ceiling collapsed where I would have been.
I looked at my son.
He looked terrified.
But present.
Speaking.
Alive.
Nothing mattered more.
“Outside,” I said.
We reached the lawn six minutes later.
Fire crews I'd kept on permanent contract arrived through the south gate.
Guards carried Dominic out.
He was alive.
The library wing burned behind us.
Then headlights appeared near the seawall.
A black sedan.
Gabriel stepped out.
No weapon visible.
He looked exactly as he always had.
Expensive gray suit.
Silver hair.
Calm expression.
The attorney who had negotiated my first legitimate real-estate purchase.
The man who attended my wedding.
The man who had stood at Elena's funeral.
He looked toward the burning mansion.
“What a tragedy.”
I walked toward him.
“Stay with Matteo,” I told Clara.
Gabriel smiled.
“You found the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“You always were slow when emotions were involved.”
My hand tightened around the gun.
“You killed Elena.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Marcus changed the timer.”
“On your orders.”
“No.”
I paused.
Gabriel sighed.
“Marcus panicked. Elena threatened to go to federal investigators. He decided fear wasn't enough.”
I looked toward Marcus, restrained near the house.
Marcus shouted, “He's lying!”
Gabriel smiled.
“Of course he says that.”
Two criminals accusing each other.
No honor among cowards.
But Daniel's files held enough evidence.
We didn't need confession.
Gabriel looked at Clara.
“She has copies.”
“Yes.”
“She'll never be safe.”
I stepped closer.
“Neither will you.”
He shook his head.
“You think this ends with me?”
“It ends with my family walking away.”
“You are a Rossi. Men like us don't walk away.”
Us.
That word disgusted me.
“You're wrong.”
Gabriel's smile faded.
For years, I had believed power meant making people afraid.
Standing there with my injured son behind me and my wife's murderer in front of me, I understood how small that definition was.
Real power was deciding what you refused to become.
Police sirens approached in the distance.
Gabriel looked genuinely surprised.
“You called the police?”
“No.”
Clara stepped forward.
“I did.”
Gabriel stared at her.
She held Daniel's drive.
“And before we came back from Worcester, I sent copies to three federal agencies and two reporters.”
My eyebrows rose.
“You didn't tell me.”
“You have control issues.”
Luca laughed.
Gabriel's face finally broke.
“You stupid little nurse.”
Clara's voice became cold.
“Caretaker.”
Gabriel reached inside his jacket.
I moved.
So did three police officers approaching behind him.
“Hands!”
Gabriel stopped.
For several seconds, I thought he would draw.
Instead, his shoulders dropped.
His hand came out empty.
They arrested him on my lawn while my mansion burned.
I should have felt victorious.
I didn't.
I felt tired.
Matteo rolled beside me.
He looked at the flames.
“Is our house gone?”
“Part of it.”
“My room?”
“Probably.”
He thought for a moment.
Then shrugged.
“I hated that room.”
I laughed.
A real laugh.
The first in fourteen months.
Matteo smiled.
May you like
Clara looked at us.
And for the first time since Elena died, the future didn't feel like something I needed to fear.
