The Don's Daughter & Her Guardian

SHATTERED GLASS

Bella's POV

My father's words about guardian angels still hung in the air when the window exploded.

Glass. So much glass. Like diamonds thrown by an angry god. I had leaned forward to see the surveillance footage better, trying to understand who had been protecting me, and that tiny movement saved my life.

The bullet sang past my ear. Close enough that I felt its heat. Close enough that my hair moved in its wake.

"Down! Everyone down!" My father's voice cut through the ringing in my ears.

But down was where the glass was. Sharp pieces covered the floor like deadly snow. I pressed myself against the wall instead, watching the world go crazy around me.

More bullets followed the first. The reinforced windows held but cracked, spider webs spreading across them like disease. Someone screamed. Not me. I had forgotten how to make sounds.

"North wall breach!" A soldier's voice crackled through speakers. "They know the weak points! They know..."

Static ate his words.

My father grabbed my arm. His fingers would leave bruises but bruises meant I was alive to see them. "Move. Now."

We ran. Through corridors that had seemed safe an hour ago. Past paintings with new bullet holes for eyes. The compound shook with explosions, each one placed exactly where it would hurt most.

"Medical supplies," I gasped. "Where do you keep..."

"Storage room. Third floor." He shoved me toward the stairs. "Go. Help the wounded. I need to..."

Another explosion. Closer. The lights flickered and came back wrong. Emergency power painted everything red.

I took the stairs three at a time. My hands still smelled like blood from the clinic. Now they would smell like more blood. Always blood in this family.

The third floor looked like a war zone because it was one. Soldiers lay against walls, pressing red hands to redder wounds. I grabbed supplies and got to work.

"Hold still," I told a man whose shoulder had too many holes. "This will hurt."

"Everything hurts," he mumbled. Then louder, "They knew, Doc. They knew exactly where to hit us."

My hands paused in their work. "What do you mean?"

"The shift changes. The blind spots." His eyes rolled with pain. "Someone told them. Someone who knows us."

I worked on three more soldiers. Each told the same story. The attackers moved like they had blueprints. Like they had schedules. Like they had been watching and waiting and learning.

"Bella." Tommy Russo appeared at my elbow. Still bleeding from his own wounds but standing. "We need to talk."

"I'm busy." Another soldier. Another wound. So many wounds.

"Now." He pulled me into an empty room. Locked the door. His face had gone the color of old paper. "Listen to me. Really listen. This isn't about the Volkovs."

"Tommy, you're not making sense. You need medical..."

"Someone wants you dead." The words came out fast, like he was afraid of being interrupted. "Has wanted it for months. The Volkovs are just... they're cover. A distraction."

My blood forgot how to be warm. "Who?"

"I don't know. But they're inside. Family or close to it." He gripped my shoulders. "They know your routines. Where you eat breakfast. Which routes you take. When you're alone. This war? It's the perfect time to make you disappear and blame the Russians."

"My father would never..."

"Your father doesn't know! Whoever this is, they're smart. Patient. They've been planning while we were all looking the wrong way."

Another explosion. The building groaned like a wounded animal. Through the door, I heard running feet. Shouting. Orders being screamed in voices cracking with fear.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Tommy's laugh had no humor in it. "Because I've served your father for twenty years. Because I held you as a baby. Because..." He stopped. Listened. "He's bringing someone in. Someone from outside our usual structure."

"Who?"

"Someone who answers only to him. Someone who..." Tommy's face went even paler. "Oh Christ. He wouldn't."

"Who, Tommy?"

But I never got an answer. The lights died completely. Emergency power failed. For three heartbeats, the world was black. Then generators kicked in and we had light again. Ugly light that made everything look like blood.

My father's voice echoed through the compound's speakers. "All units to the main hall. Security Protocol Seven. Repeat, Protocol Seven."

I had never heard of Protocol Seven. From Tommy's expression, that was on purpose.

"Stay close to me," he whispered. "And whatever happens, whatever you see, don't run. Running makes you prey."

The main hall was packed with our people. Soldiers, staff, everyone who could walk. They formed a circle, leaving the center empty. Waiting.

My father stood at the top of the stairs. King of his crumbling castle. "We have a traitor among us," he announced. "Someone who sold our secrets. Someone who wants my daughter dead."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Eyes found me. Some sympathetic. Some calculating. Any of them could be the one who wanted me buried.

"But we also have a solution." My father's smile was all teeth. "Someone whose loyalty has never wavered. Someone who has served our family in ways you cannot imagine."

The main entrance opened. Just opened. No explosion. No drama. Like whoever was coming had every right to walk through our door.

Smoke from the battle drifted in first. Then footsteps. Slow. Measured. The crowd shifted, and I understood what Tommy meant about not running. Every instinct screamed at me to move, to hide, to be anywhere but here.

The soldiers, these hard men who had just fought for their lives, stepped back. Made a path. Their faces showed something I had rarely seen. Fear. The real kind. The kind that made grown men remember they were once children afraid of the dark.

And then I saw him.

I knew him. Sort of. The way you know a shadow in the corner of your eye. He had been at family gatherings, standing where light did not quite reach. Never speaking to anyone. Never spoken to. Just there. Watching.

Dante Moretti. The Shadow, some whispered. My father's personal ghost story.

He moved through the crowd like water through stones. Dark hair. Darker presence. The kind of man who made you understand why humans once believed in demons.

His eyes found mine. Steel gray. Winter cold. And something else. Something that made my stomach flip in ways that had nothing to do with fear.

He did not look at anyone else. Not the soldiers. Not the threats. Not even my father. Just me. Like I was the only real thing in a room full of shadows.

And I knew, with the certainty of someone watching their life change, that nothing would ever be the same.