Chapter 10 - The Last Stitch
The firefight was short, violent, and deafening.
The sound of automatic gunfire filled the massive penthouse, shattering the glass partitions of the dining room and sending a cascade of crystal shards raining down onto the Calacatta marble floors.
Cameron held Leo tight, her body shielding his small frame as the smell of cordite and copper filled the air. She could hear the heavy, frantic steps of men running through the corridors, the grunts of pain, and the cold, terrifying rhythm of Matteo’s pistol firing in steady, precise intervals.
Pop-pop-pop.
Then, silence.
The heavy, pressurized silence of an interrogation room returned to the penthouse.
Cameron slowly lifted her head. Through the shattered door of Leo’s room, she saw a single figure walking toward them through the dark.
It wasn't Matteo.
It was Silvio. His face was covered in blood, his expensive suit torn and covered in plaster dust, a silver-plated revolver held in his trembling right hand.
"Matteo..." Silvio gasped, his voice weak and ragged as he stepped into the room. "The... the kid... I’m taking the kid."
Cameron didn't scream. She didn't run.
She stood up from the corner of the room, gently laying Leo onto the bed, and stepped in front of the child, her hands hidden inside her pockets.
"You're not taking him, Silvio," she said, her voice flat, cold, and completely devoid of fear.
"Get out of the way, girl!" Silvio hissed, raising the revolver toward her chest. "I’ll kill you! I’ll kill both of you!"
"You can try," Cameron said.
She took a single, swift step forward, her hand sliding out of her pocket.
Before Silvio could even pull the trigger, the sharp, silver blades of the heavy kitchen shears flashed in the dim light of the backup generator. She plunged the blade deep into Silvio's wrist, the metal cutting through the tendons with a sharp, sickening crunch.
The silver revolver fell from his useless fingers, clattering across the marble floor.
Silvio let out a sharp, choked scream, his body collapsing to his knees as he clutched his bleeding wrist.
Cameron didn't look at him. She picked up the revolver from the floor, holding it with two hands, and aimed it straight at his forehead, her finger resting steady on the cold metal trigger.
"That is a very big feeling for such a little body," she whispered, her eyes cold and dark as stone.
The door of the room was thrown open, and Matteo sprinted inside, his black shirt torn, his shoulder bleeding once more. He stopped in the doorway, his eyes scanning the scene—the bleeding hitman on the floor, the crying child on the bed, and the twenty-three-year-old cleaning maid holding a silver revolver with the steady, quiet posture of a soldier.
Matteo’s jaw tightened. A slow, genuine smile spread across his handsome face—the first real smile Cameron had ever seen on him.
"I told you, Silvio," Matteo said, stepping into the room and gently taking the gun from Cameron's hands, his fingers wrapping warmly around hers. "She is a very dangerous woman."
He turned to his men, who had just flooded into the corridor behind him.
"Clean the house," Matteo ordered. "And call the estate in upstate New York. Tell Elena her daughter is coming home."
The danger was not gone. In his world, the next storm was always just over the horizon, and Cameron knew that her name would never truly be safe again.
But as she looked at Matteo, his hand resting warm and solid over hers, and then at Leo, who had crawled off the bed to wrap his arms around her leg, she realized she was no longer afraid of the glass cage.
May you like
She had found her boundary.
And she was going to make sure this family never broke again.
