Chapter 5 - The Price of Blood
The panic room behind the master suite was built like a bank vault—thick steel walls, independent ventilation, and a heavy digital lockpad that Luca had made me memorize on my second week in the house.
I slammed the heavy steel door shut behind us, spinning the manual deadbolt until it locked with a resounding clack.
In the dim, battery-powered emergency light of the small room, Leo stirred, letting out a soft, confused whimper against my shoulder.
"Shh, baby, shh," I whispered, pressing my cheek against his soft hair while my hands shook so badly I could barely hold my phone.
I tapped out Luca’s emergency speed-dial number.
It rang twice, three times, four times.
“Come on, pick up, pick up,” I muttered under my breath, my chest tightening into a painful knot.
“Avery?” Luca’s voice exploded through the speaker, frantic, harsh, devoid of its usual steady calm. “Where are you? My guards just radioed that the perimeter was breached—Dominic is on the property—”
"I’m in the panic room behind your bedroom," I gasped, keeping my voice as low as possible. "Leo is with me. We’re safe, but Dominic is downstairs, Luca. He had a gun. He threatened the guards."
A brutal, violent curse echoed through the phone line—Italian, sharp, dripping with absolute lethal fury.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Luca commanded, his voice dropping into a terrifying, commanding roar. “Do not open that door for anyone. Not for Mrs. Gable, not for the guards, and especially not for Dominic. I am three minutes away. I am coming home.”
The line went dead.
I clutched the phone tightly against my chest, sliding down the cold steel wall until I was sitting on the floor with Leo cradled safely in my lap. Outside the heavy panic room door, muffled footsteps echoed down the master hallway.
“Averyyyy...”
Dominic’s voice slithered through the air, singsong and mocking, echoing just outside the bedroom suite.
“I know you’re in here, sweetheart! Come on out! Uncle Dom just wants to say hello to the little heir! Little Leo needs to learn about family values, doesn't he?”
A heavy thud shook the bedroom wall—someone kicking furniture or testing doors.
“You can’t hide in the panic room forever, little bird,” Dominic called out, his footsteps drawing closer to the concealed entrance behind the bookshelf. “Luca thinks he can change the rules. He thinks he can run a criminal empire like a Fortune 500 company and leave his family out in the cold. Well, if he wants to play CEO, I’ll show him what happens when the board of directors revolts.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of my phone. My heart thudded in my ears like a war drum.
For eleven months, I had been an ordinary person with ordinary problems—rent, car parts, late fees. I had told myself that Luca Moretti’s world was a movie I was just temporarily visiting, a surreal detour funded by a forty-thousand-dollar paycheck.
Sitting in the dark steel room with a baby pressed against my heart, I finally understood the truth.
There was no going back to the diner. There was no returning to the Honda Civic with the clicking axle. The moment Leo’s tiny fingers had locked into my apron three weeks ago, my name had been entered into the ledger.
Suddenly, a massive, explosive crash echoed from downstairs, followed by the deafening crack of a gunshot that shook the entire mansion.
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Then came Luca’s voice—cold, booming, and filled with absolute, unadulterated murder.
“DOMINIC! Drop the weapon!”
