Sold to the Mafia King

Chapter 4: The Open Door

The door was unlocked.

I stood in front of it for ten seconds, counting my own breaths. The handle was cold brass, smooth, shaped like a bullet casing. I wrapped my fingers around it and turned. No resistance. The latch clicked, soft as a heartbeat, and the door swung inward.

Darkness.

The hallway outside was a narrow throat of black marble and recessed lights that had all gone dead. Not dim. Dead. Only the red glow of an emergency exit sign at the far end painted the floor in blood-colored rectangles. I stepped over the threshold. The marble was freezing against my bare feet. I took one step. Two.

The floor beneath me trembled.

It was subtle—a vibration that started in my ankles and climbed to my knees. Then I heard it. Not an explosion. A series of them. Muffled, deep, coming from somewhere below the apartment. Thump. Thump. Thump. Like a giant fist knocking on the foundation of the building.

I froze.

Then the lights went out.

Not just the hallway. Everything. The apartment behind me plunged into black, and the emergency lights didn't kick in. Total darkness. I couldn't see my own hand. I stumbled backward, hit the doorframe, and heard something else beneath the ringing in my ears.

The service elevator.

It was at the end of the hall, behind a steel panel I'd noticed when Marco dragged me in. The panel scraped open. Gears groaned. The elevator was rising. Fast.

I spun back into the apartment. My shoulder hit the door, slamming it shut, and I fumbled for the lock. There wasn't one. Just the smooth plate on the inside. No bolt. No chain. Nothing.

I grabbed the desk chair. It was heavy, oak, and I dragged it across the marble, the legs screaming, and wedged it under the handle. Then I grabbed the lamp. Metal base, glass shade. I ripped the cord from the wall and held it like a bat.

The elevator stopped.

The doors opened. Footsteps. Heavy. Multiple. Moving down the hall toward me.

I pressed my back against the wall beside the door. My heart was a trapped animal throwing itself against my ribs. The chair under the handle shook. Once. Twice.

The door exploded inward.

The chair splintered. Wood flew. Two men in black fatigues burst through, guns up, sweeping the room. The first one saw me immediately. His face was covered by a balaclava, eyes visible, white and wet in the dark.

"Romano's new toy," he said. His voice was muffled. Amused. "Grab her."

I swung the lamp.

The glass shade shattered against his shoulder. He grunted, stumbling sideways, and his gun went off. The sound was a hammer inside a metal box. Deafening. The bullet punched through the wall behind me. Plaster dust sprayed my face.

I dropped and rolled. My knee hit the floor, the cut from the vent reopening, blood slicking my shin. The second man was on me. He grabbed my hair, wrenching my head back. I screamed—not in fear, in rage—and drove my elbow backward into his groin. He doubled over, gasping.

The first man recovered. He raised his gun. Pointed it at my face.

The shot came from the doorway.

Not from inside the room. From behind him. The back of his skull vanished in a spray of red and bone. His body pitched forward, landing on the carpet with a wet thud.

Dante stood in the doorway.

He didn't look at the dead man. He looked at the second attacker, who was still on his knees, still holding my hair, his eyes wide and fixed on the gun in Dante's hand. A Glock. Matte black. The barrel smoked.

"Let go," Dante said.

The man let go. His fingers uncurled from my hair like dead spiders. He raised his hands. "Don, I didn't—this wasn't my—"

Dante shot him in the forehead.

The sound was smaller this time. A pop. The man's body fell sideways, his head hitting the marble with a c***k that sounded like a dropped melon.

Silence.

Dante stepped over the first body. He was wearing a black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and his right hand was bleeding. A long gash across the forearm, deep enough to show white. He didn't seem to notice. He walked to the second corpse and nudged it with his shoe. Then he looked at me.

I was on the floor. Blood on my face. Not mine. The dead man's. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't push myself up. The lamp base was still in my right hand, bent and useless.

Dante knelt.

He reached out. I flinched, but his hand went to my pocket. He found the tweezers. Pulled them out. Held them up to the light. The stainless steel was smeared with blood.

"You stabbed him," Dante said. It wasn't a question.

I looked at the second corpse. The tweezers were buried in the side of his neck, just above the collarbone. I didn't remember doing it. My body had moved while my mind was screaming.

"Wrong spot," Dante said. He pulled the tweezers free with a wet sound, wiped them on the dead man's shirt, and dropped them back into my pocket. "Two inches lower, you hit the carotid. He'd have bled out before I could ask him who sent him." He stood up. "Next time, aim for the eye. Or the throat. Soft tissue. No bone."

I stared at him. "Next time?"

He didn't answer. He was looking at the first corpse. He rolled it over with his foot and tore the man's collar open. A tattoo curled up the neck. A snake. Coiled. Fangs bared.

"Marchetti," Dante said. The word came out flat. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "Marco. East wing. Now."

The door burst open again.

I scrambled back, grabbing the lamp base. But it was Marco. His face was pale, his snake tattoo livid against the strain in his neck. He had a gun in each hand.

"Don," Marco said. His voice was too fast. "The east wing. They torched it. The old room. Isabella's—"

"I know," Dante said. He didn't raise his voice, but Marco stopped talking. Dante looked at his arm. The blood was dripping now, patting against the marble in a steady rhythm. He ignored it. "The gate?"

"Opened from inside," Marco said. "Ten minutes ago. Security feed shows the code. Your code, Don."

Dante went still.

I watched his face. There was nothing there. No surprise. No anger. Just a blankness that was worse than either. Then he looked at me. At my knees. At my bloody hands. At the tweezers in my pocket.

"Ten minutes ago," he repeated. "When you were in my vent."

My stomach dropped. "You think I—"

"I think someone used your little adventure as a distraction," he said. "Someone who knew I'd be watching you. Someone who wanted me looking at a screen while they opened my front door."

He grabbed my arm. Not rough. Hard. The same grip as in the car, the same absolute certainty. He hauled me up and dragged me toward the hallway.

"Marco," Dante said. "Clean this. Find the inside man. If he's still breathing in an hour, you're fired."

"Yes, Don."

Dante pushed me into the private elevator. The doors closed. He hit the button for the garage. His blood smeared the panel.

The elevator dropped.

I pressed myself into the corner. My legs wouldn't hold me. I slid down the wall until my ass hit the carpeted floor. Dante stood in the center, looking at the numbers counting down. His arm hung at his side, blood dripping from his fingertips onto the floor.

"Isabella," I said. My voice was a rasp. "Who is—"

"Dead," he said. He didn't look at me. "Ten years. They burned her tonight. Again."

The elevator stopped at B1.

The doors opened. Not the garage. A service corridor. Concrete walls. And a woman.

She stumbled into the elevator, falling against the doors. She was wearing a maid's uniform, or what was left of it. Burned. Her face was blackened on one side, her hair singed, her eyes wide and white. She grabbed Dante's sleeve.

"Don," she gasped. "The east wing. The nursery. They used gasoline. Like before. Like—" She coughed. Blood spattered Dante's shirt.

Dante didn't move. He just looked at her. Then he reached out and pressed the button to close the doors.

"Get to the medical wing," he said. "Tell them I sent you."

The doors began to slide shut. The woman let go, sinking to the floor.

And through the narrowing gap, I saw the corridor beyond her.

A man stood at the far end.

He was tall. Older. Silver hair. He wore a suit that cost more than my father's house, and he was leaning against the wall, casual, like he was waiting for a train. In his hand, he held a silver lighter. He flicked it open. The flame was steady, small, and bright in the dark.

He looked up.

His eyes met mine through the closing doors.

He smiled.

The doors sealed. The elevator dropped again.

I couldn't breathe. My lungs had locked. I turned to Dante. He was staring at the closed doors, his face pale beneath the tan, his jaw locked so tight I could see the muscle jumping.

"Who was that?" I whispered.

Dante didn't answer for three floors. Then he said, "Antonio Marchetti."

The name meant nothing to me. Everything to him.

"He came to see if you're worth killing himself," Dante said. His voice was quiet. Almost hollow. "Or if he should keep sending amateurs."

The elevator stopped. The doors opened. Cold garage air hit my face.

Dante stepped out. Then he stopped and looked back at me. His eyes were different now. Not empty. Not flat. Something was burning behind them, old and hot and terrible.

"Get up, Elena," he said. "You're not bait anymore. You're a witness. And witnesses who sit on the floor get shot."

He held out his hand.

His blood was still dripping. His arm was still cut. And his eyes were still fixed on mine, waiting to see if I'd take it.

I looked at his hand. At the blood. At the tweezers in my pocket.

Then I took it.