Chapter 13 - Through the Walls
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Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. Marco. It wasn't my mother who paid the chef. It was Marco. He was orchestrating a coup, blaming the Falcones and my missing mother to eliminate Dante’s heir and seize the syndicate throne for himself.
The heavy steel door of the bunker shuddered violently. A breaching charge. He was trying to blow the lock.
"Leo, shh, baby, we have to be quiet," I whispered, tears streaming down my face as I desperately searched the small bunker for an exit. Dante had said this was a panic room, designed to keep threats out. But what if the threat had the override codes?
My eyes landed on a heavy ventilation grate near the floor. It was large enough for a person to fit through.
I grabbed a heavy fire poker from the emergency supplies kit and jammed it into the screws, prying the grate off the wall with frantic, adrenaline-fueled strength. I grabbed Leo, wrapping him tightly in a thick wool blanket to muffle his cries, and crawled into the dark, narrow ventilation shaft just as a deafening explosion ripped the bunker door off its hinges.
Smoke poured into the room. I held my breath, crawling backward into the pitch-black ductwork, praying Leo wouldn't make a sound.
"Find her!" Marco barked from the ruined doorway. "Check the vents!"
I scrambled deeper into the walls of the sprawling estate, navigating by touch and memory of the blueprints Dante had shown me. The metal was freezing, the air suffocating with dust. I crawled for what felt like hours, listening to the heavy boots of Marco’s traitorous men echoing on the floors above and below me.
Finally, I saw a sliver of moonlight filtering through a grate ahead. I pushed it open, tumbling out into the dusty, forgotten attic of the west wing.
I scrambled to my feet, clutching Leo, ready to make a run for the servant's stairs.
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But as I turned, the beam of a tactical flashlight hit me directly in the face.
"Going somewhere, Alina?" Marco sneered, stepping out from the shadows with a suppressed pistol raised and pointed directly at my chest.
