Chapter 5 – The Bleeding Brother

The heavy iron key felt like a block of ice against my chest.

“Mom, please! Open the door!” the voice screamed again, followed by a wet, heavy thud against the steel ceiling.

It was Michael. Luca’s younger brother.

Teresa gasped, trying to push herself up from the cot. “Michael? Open it, Hannah! Open the door!”

“Wait!” I cried, grabbing her arm. “If they shot Luca, the Russians could be standing right behind Michael holding a gun to his head to force us to open it.”

“I don’t care!” Teresa sobbed, her frail hands beating against my shoulders. “He’s my son! Open the door!”

I looked at the glowing green release button on the wall. If I pressed it, I might be signing our death warrants. I grabbed a heavy fire extinguisher from the wall mount, gripping it like a baseball bat.

I hit the button.

The hydraulic seals hissed, and the heavy steel door slowly swung upward.

A body collapsed down the concrete stairs, tumbling in a heap of ruined expensive fabric and blood.

It was Michael. And he was alone.

I slammed the green button again, sealing the door instantly before anyone else could follow.

“Michael!” Teresa shrieked, falling to her knees beside him.

He was a mess. His tailored suit jacket was soaked in blood, his face bruised and swollen. He was clutching his stomach, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps.

I dropped the fire extinguisher and ripped open a first aid kit from the wall. I tore his shirt open. A bullet had grazed his side—a deep, ugly trench of missing flesh, but it hadn’t hit any major organs. He was bleeding heavily, but it wasn’t fatal.

I packed the wound tightly with gauze, pressing down with all my weight. Michael screamed in agony, his head thrashing against the concrete.

“Hold him still, Mrs. Moretti!” I ordered.

Teresa grabbed her son’s face, crying over him. “Michael, look at me. Breathe. Where is your brother? You said they shot Luca!”

Michael coughed, spitting a mixture of blood and saliva onto the floor.

“They flanked us,” Michael gasped, his eyes wild with terror. “The Russians… they came through the conservatory. Vanessa gave them the blueprints. They trapped Luca in the grand hallway. I tried… I tried to get to him, Mom. But they laid down suppressive fire. I took a hit. Marco threw me down the stairs to save me.”

“And Luca?” I demanded, pressing harder on the gauze. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” Michael sobbed, the arrogant playboy finally broken completely. “I saw him go down, Hannah. I saw the blood. Marco dragged him behind the marble pillars, but there are too many of them. They’re going to execute him.”

Teresa buried her face in Michael’s chest, letting out a wail of pure, agonizing grief that tore at my heart.

Bruno whined, licking the blood from Michael’s hand.

I looked at the heavy iron key resting against my collarbone. Two hundred million dollars. A new life. Safety for my mother. All I had to do was sit in this concrete box and wait.

But I thought of Luca.

I thought of the man who had stood between his mother and the woman he was supposed to marry. The man who had looked at me with gratitude and respect when I saved Teresa’s life. The man who was bleeding out on the marble floor right now, protecting the very door I was hiding behind.

I couldn’t let him die alone.

I grabbed a roll of medical tape and secured the gauze tightly around Michael’s waist.

“Keep pressure on it,” I ordered him, standing up.

“Hannah, what are you doing?” Teresa asked, looking up at me with tear-stained eyes.

I walked over to the weapons rack mounted on the wall of the panic room. I had never fired a gun in my life. But I grabbed a heavy, matte-black shotgun and a handful of shells.

“I’m going up there,” I said, racking the shotgun with a terrifyingly loud clack.

“You can’t!” Michael choked out. “They are Spetsnaz-trained killers, Hannah! You’re a maid! You’ll die the second you open that door!”

“I know this house better than anyone,” I said, my voice steady, fueled by an adrenaline I didn’t know I possessed. “I know the servant corridors. I know the blind spots. I know exactly how to get behind the grand hallway without ever stepping foot in the main rooms.”

I looked at Teresa. “I’m bringing your son back.”

Before she could stop me, I hit the green button. The door opened just enough for me to squeeze through, and I sealed it immediately behind me.

I crawled out from under the pantry, keeping low to the floor. The kitchen was thick with smoke and the acrid smell of gunpowder.

The gunfire from the grand hallway was deafening.

I slipped into the narrow, unlit servant corridor that ran behind the dining room walls. It was pitch black, but I had walked these halls for eleven months. I knew every loose floorboard, every turn.

I crept silently until I reached the hidden service door that opened directly behind the massive marble pillars of the grand hallway.

I cracked the door an inch.

The scene was a slaughterhouse. Dozens of bodies littered the floor.

Marco was slumped against a wall, returning fire with one hand, his other arm hanging uselessly at his side.

And there was Luca.

He was pinned behind a shattered marble column. A massive pool of blood was spreading from his thigh, staining his suit pants black. He was out of ammunition, holding an empty pistol, his face pale and grim as he prepared for the end.

Five heavily armed Russian mercenaries were advancing slowly up the hallway, their assault rifles raised, preparing to execute him.

They were standing exactly on top of the imported Persian rug I had vacuumed yesterday morning.

I didn’t hesitate.

I kicked the service door open, raised the shotgun, and pulled the trigger.