Chapter 4 – THE LOCKED GATES

The pain tore through me, blinding and hot.

I clung to Leonardo’s jacket as he carried me through the grand hallways of the mansion.

Don Carmine and his men flanked us, their weapons drawn.

“How far apart are the contractions?” Leonardo demanded, kicking open the doors to the main foyer.

“I don’t know,” I sobbed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Two minutes? Three? It hurts so much, Leo.”

He looked down at me, his jaw set in pure determination.

“I’ve got you, Emma. I’ve got you.”

Through the massive glass windows of the foyer, I could see the front gates of the estate.

Bianca wasn’t lying.

Three heavily armored black SUVs were parked horizontally across the wrought-iron gates. Half a dozen mercenaries hired by Dr. Thorne’s clinic stood behind them, weapons trained on the front doors.

They were trapping us inside.

“They want her to bleed out,” Carmine growled, assessing the barricade. “If the mother dies, the forged adoption papers take immediate effect. Bianca gets the child.”

Leonardo gently set me down on a plush velvet sofa in the foyer.

He took off his expensive suit jacket and draped it over my shaking shoulders.

“You are not going to die,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against mine. “You are going to hold your baby tonight. Do you understand me?”

I nodded weakly, tears streaming down my face.

Leonardo stood up. He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves.

He turned to Carmine.

“Keep her safe.”

Carmine nodded. “What are you going to do?”

Leonardo didn’t answer. He walked directly out the front doors, stepping onto the massive stone portico.

He walked down the stairs, completely unarmed, his hands at his sides.

The mercenaries at the gate raised their rifles.

“Stop right there, Moretti!” their leader shouted through a megaphone.

Leonardo didn’t stop.

He kept walking down the long driveway, his eyes locked on the barricade.

Inside the foyer, I gripped the armrest of the sofa, crying out in agony as another contraction ripped through my body.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” I gasped.

Carmine watched through the glass.

“You underestimate the man your brother loved, Emma.”

Leonardo stopped twenty feet from the armored SUVs.

The mercenary leader scoffed.

“You surrender, Moretti? Give us the girl, and we’ll let you live.”

Leonardo reached into his pocket.

He didn’t pull out a gun.

He pulled out his cell phone.

He pressed a single button and held it up in the air.

For three seconds, nothing happened.

Then, the ground began to shake.

A deafening roar echoed from the woods bordering the estate.

Headlights pierced the darkness.

Not one car. Not ten.

Thirty black Lincoln Navigators tore through the tree line, smashing through the brick walls of the estate, completely bypassing the front gates.

They swarmed the driveway, surrounding Thorne’s mercenaries in a circle of blinding headlights.

Over a hundred men stepped out of the vehicles. The entire brute force of the Moretti family.

The mercenaries dropped their weapons instantly, raising their hands in surrender.

Leonardo didn’t even look at them.

He turned around and sprinted back up the driveway.

He burst through the front doors, his chest heaving.

“The road is clear!” he shouted. “Get the armored sedan!”

Carmine’s men helped lift me.

We rushed outside into the freezing Chicago air.

Leonardo placed me in the backseat of his heavily armored car, climbing in beside me.

“Drive,” he ordered the driver. “To St. Jude’s. The public hospital. Now.”

The car tore down the driveway, leaving the ruined gates behind.

I fell sideways, my head resting on Leonardo’s lap.

He stroked my damp hair, his hands trembling slightly.

“We’re almost there, Emma. Hold on for Matteo.”

I closed my eyes, praying to a husband I couldn’t see.

But as the car sped onto the highway, Leonardo’s phone buzzed.

He answered it on speaker.

It was Anthony, his former attorney. His voice was frantic.

“Leonardo, please! You have to listen to me!”

“You’re a dead man, Anthony,” Leonardo said coldly.

“I know! I know. But Richard just confessed everything to Carmine. You need to know the truth about Matteo’s crash.”

Leonardo froze.

“What about the crash?”

Anthony’s voice broke.

“It wasn’t Richard who ordered the hit on your brother’s car.”

Leonardo’s grip on his phone tightened.

“Who did?”

“It was Bianca,” Anthony sobbed. “She found out Matteo was secretly trying to locate his first child. She knew if he found the kid, he’d realize she was the one who sold it to Thorne’s clinic five years ago.”

My eyes flew open.

Bianca hadn’t just covered it up. She was the one who sold Matteo’s first baby.

And she murdered him to keep the secret.

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