Chapter 7 - The Battle for the Rinaldi Legacy
“GET DOWN!” Vittorio roared.
Before Serena could process the flashing steel, Vittorio grabbed her waist and tackled her behind a thick stone pillar at the base of the courthouse steps.
Bullets tore through the air with deafening, metallic cracks, shattering the glass doors of the courthouse above them. Screams erupted across the plaza as bystanders scrambled for cover.
Vittorio pulled his handgun from his shoulder holster, his face instantly transforming into a mask of brutal, icy lethal focus.
He fired three rapid shots around the edge of the pillar. A man in a dark jacket dropped to the concrete with a thud.
“It’s Moretti’s men!” Vittorio’s security chief shouted from across the steps, returning fire with an assault rifle. “They knew we were at the courthouse!”
“They didn't come for me,” Vittorio realized instantly, his dark eyes snapping to Serena’s terrified face. “They knew I’d bring my best men to the court. The estate... the estate is empty!”
Serena’s heart stopped. “The boys! Lucia!”
Mrs. Chen and nurse Sarah were at the estate with the four quadruplets and seven-year-old Lucia, who had been brought to the house that morning after the custody hearing win!
“We have to go!” Serena screamed, grabbing Vittorio’s lapel. “Vittorio, we have to go right now!”
Vittorio didn't hesitate. He leaned out from behind the pillar, firing four perfectly targeted rounds that suppressed the remaining attackers, then grabbed Serena’s hand.
“To the armored sedan! MOVE!”
They sprinted through the smoke and chaotic gunfire, diving into the back seat of Vittorio’s heavy reinforced sedan. The driver slammed his foot on the accelerator, mounting the sidewalk and tearing through the city streets at ninety miles an hour, sirens wailing in the distance.
Twenty minutes later, the armored sedan smashed through the iron gates of the Rinaldi estate.
The iron gates were bent outward. Two security vehicles lay smoking on the circular driveway.
The front doors of the mansion were hanging wide open.
Serena threw her car door open before the vehicle had even come to a complete stop. She sprinted up the marble steps, her dress torn at the hem, her heart pounding with a terrifying, primal fury.
“MARCO! NICO! LUCIA!” she screamed, bursting into the foyer.
The foyer was a warzone. Broken vase fragments littered the floor.
A heavy, scarred man—Moretti’s top enforcer, Marco’s namesake traitor—stood near the grand staircase, holding a heavy handgun, grinning as two of his men dragged Mrs. Chen toward the kitchen.
In the shadows beneath the grand staircase, Serena caught a glimpse of movement.
Alessandro had built a structure.
Using the heavy oak console tables and the heavy brass umbrella stands, the boys had created a barricade blocking the entrance to the hidden panic room beneath the stairs. Little Nico stood on top of the console, wielding his plastic sword with wild, terrifying courage, shouting, “STAY AWAY FROM OUR SISTER!”
Lucia was tucked safely behind Marco and Tommaso inside the dark doorway of the panic room, holding her stuffed rabbit, her brown eyes wide but fearless because the quadruplets were standing in front of her like four tiny lions.
The enforcer raised his gun toward Nico. “Get down, you little brat—”
“DON'T YOU TOUCH THEM!”
Serena didn't think. She didn't calculate.
She grabbed a heavy, forty-pound antique bronze statue from the console table beside her and hurled herself at the enforcer with the terrifying, unhinged fury of a mother protecting her young.
The statue struck the enforcer full in the face with a sickening CRACK.
The man reeled backward, blood spurting from his broken nose, dropping his gun onto the marble floor.
Serena didn't stop. She tackled him to the ground, grabbing his throat, screaming with raw, primal rage, punching him with everything she had.
Vittorio burst through the front door a second later.
His eyes swept over the room—taking in Serena pinned on top of the bleeding enforcer, his four sons standing victorious over their built barricade, and Lucia safe inside the panic room.
Vittorio raised his weapon and neutralized the remaining two attackers with cold, surgical efficiency.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the heavy, ragged gasps of Serena’s breathing.
She stood up slowly, her knuckles bleeding, her green dress covered in dust and blood. She turned toward the staircase.
“Lucia!” she cried.
Lucia ran out from behind the barricade, throwing her small arms around Serena’s waist. “Mommy! I was brave! The boys protected me!”
Marco, Nico, Alessandro, and Tommaso scrambled over their fort, throwing themselves against Serena, clutching her dress, her arms, her hands, all four of them talking at once:
“Serena! You hit him with a statue!”
“That was awesome!”
“Alessandro’s fort held!”
“Tommaso didn't even cry!”
Serena fell to her knees on the blood-stained marble, pulling all five children—her daughter and the four quadruplets—into one massive, tight, weeping embrace.
Vittorio walked slowly across the foyer. He dropped his gun into his holster.
He knelt beside them on the floor, his massive arms wrapping around Serena and all five children, pulling them all against his broad chest.
He rested his forehead against Serena’s wet hair, his body trembling with a profound, terrifying relief.
“You saved them,” Vittorio whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion he had not allowed himself to feel in three long years. “You saved my family.”
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Serena looked up through her tears into his dark, beautiful face.
“They’re my family too,” she whispered.
