Chapter 5 - BLOOD ON THE MARBLE STAIRCASE
The heavy oak door clicked shut, leaving me alone in the silent, amber-lit study.
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Outside in the hallway, the shouting had escalated.
“Dante! Have you lost your mind?” Richard Bennett’s voice echoed up the stairwell, thick with patrician fury. “The board is downstairs! The press is outside! You cannot cancel this alliance over a domestic dispute!”
“It’s not a dispute, Richard,” Dante’s voice cut through the corridor like a razor blade. “It’s an execution.”
A dull thud echoed against the marble walls.
Followed by a gasp of shock.
I rushed to the study door, pressing my ear against the cold wood.
“You’re backing out?” Richard sputtered, his voice suddenly sounding old and frantic. “After everything we signed? After the offshore accounts—?”
“The offshore accounts that drained Thomas Carter’s estate?” Dante interrupted. “I have the digital ledger, Richard. Signed by your own hand in 2020.”
Silence fell over the hallway.
A heavy, suffocating silence.
“You bluffed,” Richard whispered hoarsely. “You never cared about the merger.”
“I care about leverage,” Dante replied smoothly. “And right now, your leverage just ran out.”
A sharp click of a weapon being unholstered echoed clearly through the wood.
My breath hitched.
“Dante, wait!” I whispered to myself, my hand gripping the brass door handle.
Suddenly, a heavy crash shook the hallway outside.
Glass shattered against the wall.
Vanessa screamed—a high, piercing sound of pure terror.
“Security!” Vanessa shrieked. “Someone kill him! Shoot him!”
Footsteps pounded frantically across the marble floor—not two or three pairs, but a dozen.
Heavy boots.
Men with weapons.
The trap had sprung, but not just on the Bennetts.
Dante’s voice rang out above the chaos, cold and commanding.
“Take them all. Leave no loose ends.”
Before I could process what was happening, the study window behind me shattered inward.
Glass rained across the Persian rug.
A dark shadow vaulted over the balcony railing, landing silently inside the room.
I spun around, a scream trapped in my throat.
A masked man stood before me, holding a suppressed pistol aimed directly at my chest.
“Found her,” the intruder muttered into a comms unit on his collar.
I scrambled backward, tripping over the edge of the rug, crashing hard onto the floor.
The masked man raised his weapon.
My life flashed before my eyes—the hospital bills, my mother’s pale face, the cold kitchen sink, and Dante’s dark eyes.
Is this how it ends?
Suddenly, the study door flew off its hinges, crashing inward.
May you like
Dante stood in the doorway, his dinner jacket stained with blood, twin pistols raised in both hands.
Without a single word of warning, Dante fired.
