Chapter 5 – THE PANIC ROOM
The world spun in a dizzying haze of pain and flashing sirens.
I felt myself being lifted into Antonio’s arms. He carried me out of the dusty bakery and into the freezing rain, refusing to let any of his soldiers take me from him.
“Call my private doctor,” Antonio roared at Carlo as he laid me gently across the backseat of the SUV. “Tell him to meet us in the panic room at the estate. Now!”
“Boss, the hospital is closer—” Carlo argued.
“The hospital isn’t secure!” Antonio snarled, climbing into the back seat with me, pulling my head onto his lap while applying brutal pressure to my wound. “Daniel’s men might still be out there. We go to the estate.”
The ride back to the mansion was a nightmare. Every bump in the road sent a jolt of agony through my ribs.
My mother sat in the front seat, crying and praying, clutching her rosary.
“You’re going to be fine, Grace,” Antonio kept whispering, his lips pressed against my forehead. His tears mixed with the rain on my face. “You saved my life. You foolish, beautiful, brave girl. Why did you do that?”
“Because,” I gasped, the pain making it hard to breathe, “you still… have to have… dinner with your mother.”
Antonio let out a broken, agonizing sob, kissing my hair repeatedly.
When we reached the estate, the gates were locked down tighter than a fortress.
Antonio carried me down into the sub-basement of the mansion, into the reinforced steel panic room. It was fully stocked with medical supplies.
Ten minutes later, the private mafia doctor arrived.
He cut away my blood-soaked uniform.
“She’s incredibly lucky, Mr. Caruso,” the doctor said, injecting a local anesthetic into my side. “The bullet only grazed her ribs. It’s a deep flesh wound, but it missed her vital organs. She needs stitches and rest.”
Antonio didn’t leave my side while the doctor stitched me up. He held my hand so tightly his knuckles were white.
When it was over, my mother sat beside my bed, stroking my hair until she finally collapsed from exhaustion, falling asleep in the armchair in the corner of the room.
The panic room was quiet, save for the hum of the air filtration system.
I lay in the sterile white bed, heavily medicated but awake.
Antonio was sitting in a chair pulled right up to the edge of my mattress. He had taken off his blood-soaked suit jacket, his white shirt ruined. He looked exhausted, older, his face etched with a profound terror that hadn’t completely faded.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” I whispered, my voice raspy. “You need to be upstairs. Victoria… Daniel…”
“Daniel is dead,” Antonio said softly, tracing circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. “Victoria is locked in a holding cell. Carlo is interrogating her. Katie and her son are safely asleep in the guest wing. And my mother is safe.”
He looked up at me, his dark eyes filled with an intensity that made the breath catch in my throat.
“The only place I need to be,” Antonio whispered, “is right here.”
I swallowed hard, the painkillers making me brave.
“Why?” I asked. “I’m just an employee, Antonio. You didn’t even know my name three months ago.”
Antonio gave a small, self-deprecating smile.
“I knew your name the day you started working here, Grace,” he confessed softly. “I watched you. I watched how kind you were to my mother when nobody else was looking. I watched how hard you worked to take care of your own mother. You were the only real thing in a house full of vipers.”
He leaned closer, his hand coming up to gently cup my cheek.
“I let Victoria stay because I thought the business required an alliance,” Antonio admitted, deep shame in his voice. “I let her isolate my mother because I was too blind to see what was happening in my own home. I was a coward.”
“You’re not a coward,” I said fiercely, wincing as the movement pulled at my stitches.
Antonio carefully pressed me back against the pillows.
“You jumped in front of a bullet for me tonight,” Antonio whispered, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “You gave everything for a man who didn’t deserve it.”
“I did it because I love you,” the words slipped out of my mouth before my brain could stop them.
The silence in the room was absolute.
I squeezed my eyes shut, mortified. I had just confessed my love to the most powerful man in New York, a man who lived in a different universe than I did.
But then I felt his lips gently press against mine.
It was a soft, tender kiss, filled with overwhelming gratitude and a desperate, burning passion.
“I love you too, Grace,” Antonio whispered against my mouth. “I have for months.”
He kissed me again, deeper this time, sealing a promise in the quiet safety of the steel room.
But our moment was violently interrupted.
The heavy steel door of the panic room buzzed, and Carlo’s voice came through the intercom, sounding panicked.
“Boss! You need to come upstairs right now. It’s Daniel.”
Antonio froze. “Daniel is dead.”
“No, boss,” Carlo’s voice trembled. “He was wearing a Kevlar vest. He’s alive. And he just crashed an explosive-rigged truck through the front gates.”
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