Chapter 8 - The Red Dawn
At 3:00 AM, the power to the Pellegrini estate went completely dead.
The monitors in the study flickered out, plunging the mansion into absolute darkness. The silent eerienss was instantly broken by the muffled, rhythmic thud of suppressed gunfire from the outer gardens.
The Morettis hadn't baited Lorenzo away to kill him at the meeting. They had sent a hit squad to the house while he was gone, aiming to eliminate his lineage and break his spirit forever.
Emma acted on pure instinct. She scooped Sophia out of the bed, wrapping her tightly in the yellow blanket. "Sophia, baby, look at me. Remember the monarch butterflies? We’re going to play a game. We have to fly very quietly into the secret garden."
Sophia nodded, her tiny hands wrapping securely around Emma's neck, her trust absolute.
Emma slipped out of the bedroom, navigating the dark corridors using the spatial memory she had developed during her night shifts. Down the back stairs, past the kitchen, she ran toward the old wine cellar—the place Juliana had told her about during their three weeks in Naples.
Behind a heavy rack of antique Barolo was a reinforced steel door. Emma pushed it open, pulling Sophia inside just as the heavy footsteps of armed men echoed through the kitchen above.
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"Find the kid!" a voice shouted in a thick Brooklyn accent. "Matteo wants the job done before the don gets back!"
Emma held Sophia close in the pitch-black bunker, pressing her hand over the child's mouth, her own heart hammering violently against her ribs. She began to whisper the lullaby into Sophia's ear, using the rhythm of the old dialect to keep the child’s breathing steady, preventing a panic attack that could trigger her asthma.
