MONTARO

CHAPTER 2: The Harvest

The world did not slow down. It shattered.

The single crack was followed by a staccato rhythm of hell—suppressed gunfire, a sound like God ripping silk. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once, from the perimeter, from the house, from within the crowd itself.

The Vivaldi died mid-note.

For one suspended second, the scene was a frozen painting of horror. A spray of crimson arced from Don Del Rosa’s temple, painting the white tablecloth beside him. He stood for a moment, a look of profound confusion on his face, before his legs gave way.

The painting exploded into motion.

Screams, raw and primal, tore through the air. Glass shattered as guests dove for cover, overturning tables laden with crystal and caviar. The air, once sweet with peonies, turned acrid with the smell of cordite and copper.

“Get down!” I screamed, my training overriding my terror. I shoved Naomi to the marble floor behind a heavy stone planter, my body covering hers. Her wedding dress, a moment ago a symbol of purity, was now a stark white target.

“Amon!” she shrieked, struggling against me. “Where is Amon?”

I risked a glance over the planter’s edge. The dance floor was a slaughterhouse. Men in black tactical gear, their faces obscured by skull-like masks, moved with a chilling, synchronized efficiency. They weren’t shouting. They weren’t raging. They were harvesting.

I saw my brother, Philip, his face a mask of feral rage, fire his custom-made pistol twice. A masked man staggered but didn’t fall. Another one, from his flank, swung the butt of his rifle. The impact was sickening, a wet crack against Philip’s skull. He dropped like a stone, his blood pooling on the imported Italian marble.

“Philip!” The cry was torn from my throat.

My father was a bull, roaring orders, surrounded by a shrinking circle of his loyal guards. They returned fire, but the attackers were too many, too disciplined. They picked off his men one by one, a methodical culling.

“Camila! The east veranda!” my father bellowed, catching my eye. His own were wide, not with fear, but with a furious, disbelieving betrayal. “Get her out!”

He was pointing at Naomi. The priority. The symbol.

But it was too late.

Amon, Naomi’s groom of less than an hour, had drawn a small pistol from his tuxedo jacket. He stood, brave and foolish, in the center of the chaos, aiming at a group of advancing shadows.

“Amon, no!” Naomi screamed.

He never got the chance to fire. A single shot, impossibly accurate, took him in the center of his forehead. He was thrown backward, his body landing at the foot of the gazebo where he had just pledged his life. The look of startled surprise was frozen on his young face forever.

Naomi’s scream was a sound I knew would haunt me until my dying day. It was the sound of a soul being shredded.

I dragged her backward, my heels slipping in spilled wine and blood. My mind was a tactical map, calculating escape routes that were closing one by one. The main gate was a choke-point of fire. The river path was swarming with black-clad figures. We were trapped in a beautiful, open-air tomb.

A hand grabbed my arm, hard. I spun, ready to strike, but it was one of our older guards, Marco, his face ashen.

“This way, Signorina Camila! The service tunnel!”

He pulled us, half-carrying Naomi who had gone limp with shock, toward a discreet door hidden behind a tapestry near the kitchen entrance. It was our emergency bolt-hole, a passage leading to a boathouse downriver.

Hope, fierce and desperate, flared in my chest.

We burst through the door into the relative darkness of the service corridor. The sounds of the m******e were muffled here, replaced by the frantic echo of our own footsteps.

We were ten steps down the concrete passage when the door at the other end opened.

A man stood silhouetted against the moonlight filtering in from the boathouse. He wasn’t dressed in tactical gear. He wore a simple, dark suit, his posture relaxed, almost bored. In his hand, he held a pistol, pointed casually at the floor.

Marco shoved me behind him, raising his own weapon. “Stay back!”

The man in the suit didn’t even aim. He fired twice. Two soft phuts from a silenced barrel.

Marco grunted, his body jerking twice before he collapsed, his blood seeping across the concrete.

Naomi whimpered, burying her face in my shoulder. I stood frozen, my back against the cold wall, staring at the man who had just effortlessly erased the last of our protection.

He stepped forward, into the dim light. He was older, maybe late thirties, with a face that was all hard planes and grim purpose. A thick, angry scar ran from his temple down to his jaw. This was no anonymous foot soldier. This was a hunter.

His eyes, cold and assessing, passed over Naomi’s trembling form and locked onto me.

“Camila Toreslanda,” he said. His voice was a low rasp, like gravel grinding underfoot. It held no triumph, no malice. It was a simple statement of fact.

He knew my name.

Before I could react, could speak, could even breathe, heavy footsteps sounded behind us from the door we’d just entered. I turned.

Two of the masked tactical operatives stood there, blocking our retreat. We were caged.

The scarred man holstered his pistol and took another step toward me. He pulled a small, sleek device from his pocket—a digital tablet. He held it up.

On the screen was a live video feed. It showed my father, on his knees in the middle of the ravaged reception. His suit was torn, his face bruised and bleeding. A masked man stood behind him, a gun pressed to the back of his head.

“Papa!” I choked out.

My father’s eyes met mine through the screen. They were not pleading. They were filled with a desperate, silent message. Fight. Survive.

The scarred man watched my face, his expression unchanging. “The Don has a choice to make,” he rasped. “His legacy, or his blood.”

On the screen, the masked man leaned down and spoke, his voice electronically distorted. “The daughter for the Don, George. A simple trade.”

My father spat a glob of blood onto the ground. He lifted his head, and I saw the moment the calculation was made in his eyes. The cold, brutal math of survival. The empire versus the heir.

“She is no daughter of mine if she is your pawn,” he snarled, his voice raw but clear. “The Toreslanda bloodline ends with me before it bows to you, Montaro.”

The name was a death knell.

Montaro.

The world tilted on its axis. He was here. He had done this.

And my father… my father had just disowned me to my face.

The betrayal was so absolute, so cold, it felt like a physical blow. The air left my lungs. The foundation of my entire life crumbled into dust in an instant.

Before the sob could break from my throat, the video feed went black.

The scarred man lowered the tablet. “The debt is called.”

He nodded to the two operatives behind me.

They moved with brutal efficiency. One grabbed a catatonic Naomi, pulling her from my side. The other seized my arms, twisting them behind my back with practiced skill. A cold, hard plastic zip-tie was cinched around my wrists, biting into my skin.

“Naomi!” I cried, struggling against the iron grip.

The scarred man stepped close, his face inches from mine. I could smell gunpowder and cold night air on him.

“Worry about yourself, Princess,” he whispered, the rasp of his voice a violation. “The boss has special plans for you.”

He turned and walked away, down the tunnel toward the boathouse. The operative holding Naomi dragged her in the opposite direction, back toward the hellscape of the estate. Her screams echoed down the corridor until a door slammed shut, silencing them.

I was alone with the operative holding me. He began to march me forward, following the scarred man. As we passed Marco’s body, I saw the blank stare in his dead eyes.

I was being taken. Not as a prisoner of war, but as a prize. A blood debt.

We emerged into the cool night air by the boathouse. A black, unmarked van idled, its back doors open like a hungry mouth. The scarred man stood beside it, waiting.

With a final, brutal shove, the operative propelled me forward. I stumbled, my knees hitting the cold metal floor of the van. Before I could scramble up, the doors slammed shut, plunging me into absolute darkness.

The engine roared to life. The van began to move, carrying me away from the ruins of my life, from the screams of my cousin, from the chilling betrayal of my father.

The last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me whole was the scarred man’s voice from the front seat, speaking into a comms unit.

“The package is secure, Niro. Tell Mr. Montaro… the harvest is complete.”