Chapter 6 – THE BETRAYAL

A suffocating silence blanketed the ballroom.

Sebastian stood completely still.

The absolute betrayal on his face was agonizing to watch.

His mother hadn’t just been murdered by a rival family.

She had been sold out by her own husband.

“Well,” Dominic said with a cruel smirk. “The truth is finally out. Your father was a pragmatic man, Sebastian. He knew she was going to take you and run. He traded her life for fifty blocks of territory.”

Sebastian didn’t shout.

He didn’t pull his gun.

He reached down and gently took the child’s drawing from my hand.

He folded it, placing it inside his tuxedo jacket next to his heart.

Then he picked up his mother’s blue rosary.

“Miss Flo,” Sebastian said, his voice eerily calm.

“Yes, sweetheart?” she answered, stepping forward despite the guns.

“You knew about my father, didn’t you?”

Florence nodded, tears spilling freely.

“I found out the night he died. He confessed it in his sleep. I couldn’t bear to tell you. It would have destroyed you.”

Sebastian wrapped the rosary tightly around his knuckles.

He looked at Dominic.

“You shouldn’t have brought this box here, Dominic.”

“Why not?” Dominic laughed. “You have no men here. You wanted a quiet engagement dinner. You’re outnumbered ten to one.”

“I’m never outnumbered in my own house,” Sebastian said.

He pressed a small, hidden button underneath the dining table.

Suddenly, the crystal chandeliers went completely black.

The entire mansion plunged into absolute darkness.

Screams erupted from the guests.

“Grab him!” Dominic shouted in the dark.

Gunfire shattered the heavy ballroom windows, deafening and chaotic.

I felt a massive hand grab my arm.

“Stay low,” Sebastian whispered in my ear.

He pulled me, and I dragged Sarah and Leo with me. Florence was right beside us.

Because I was the head housekeeper, I knew this mansion better than anyone. I knew exactly where Sebastian was leading us.

We slipped through the concealed door behind the velvet curtains—the servant’s passageway.

The door clicked shut just as flashlights clicked on in the ballroom behind us.

We were in the pitch-black, narrow hallway.

“We have to get to the basement,” I whispered. “The old coal chute leads to the street.”

Sebastian struck a match, illuminating his bruised face.

“No,” he said. “We’re not leaving.”

“They will kill us!” Sarah cried, clutching Leo.

Sebastian looked at my sister, then at the terrified little boy.

“I am done running from the people who destroyed my family.”

He handed me his heavy handgun.

“Grace. Take them to the basement. Lock the steel door.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, terrified.

Sebastian smiled grimly, raising his knuckles wrapped in his mother’s blue rosary.

“I’m going to clean house.”

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