Chapter 14 - The Night They CameDarkness swallowed the apartment.
For half a second, no one moved.
Then Luka became motion.
“Mara, baby. Safe room. Now.”
Mara lifted Mila from the bassinet.
I reached for her.
Luka caught my arm.
“With Mara. You slow her down.”
Every instinct in me rebelled.
But Mara was already moving, holding Mila with expert care, disappearing behind a wall panel I had not known existed.
Anna grabbed my hand.
“Come on.”
Emergency lights glowed red along the floor.
The fortress had gone from luxurious to terrifying in one breath.
Luka’s guards moved silently, weapons low. Somewhere below us, metal groaned.
“They cut the main power,” Anna whispered. “That means inside access.”
Luka looked at her sharply.
She shrugged. “I read.”
The first explosion hit the lower level.
Not huge.
Controlled.
A breach.
The floor trembled.
I thought of Mila in Mara’s arms and forced myself not to scream.
Luka pressed a small device into my palm.
“Panic trigger. Thumb twice if you’re separated.”
“I’m not leaving my daughter.”
“You are going to live long enough to raise her.”
Before I could answer, the hallway door blew inward.
Smoke.
Shouting.
A flash of movement.
Luka shoved me behind him.
Anna pulled me down behind the kitchen island as glass shattered somewhere to our left.
I could not understand what was happening.
Only fragments.
Luka moving through smoke like he had been born in it.
A guard falling.
Anna crawling toward the nursery door.
My own breath too loud.
Then a voice cut through the chaos.
“Claire!”
Derek.
He stepped through the broken doorway wearing a bulletproof vest under his coat, his face pale but determined.
Not a husband.
Not even a coward now.
A man desperate enough to come himself.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
I stood before Anna could stop me.
Derek saw me and smiled with relief.
“There you are.”
“You brought armed men into a home with a newborn inside.”
“I came to save my daughter.”
“She is not yours.”
His smile died.
Luka emerged from the smoke behind him.
Derek froze.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Luka said.
Derek laughed shakily. “You think this ends with you? Arthur has judges, senators, hospitals. You have criminals.”
Luka stepped closer.
“I have Claire.”
For a second, Derek looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.
Not as his wife.
Not as his victim.
As the person standing between him and everything his family had built.
Then his expression changed.
“You think he cares about you?” Derek said. “Ask him why your father chose his sample. Ask him why every woman connected to a Moretti line ends up dead or hidden.”
Luka’s face darkened.
Derek smiled.
“There it is. The truth he hates.”
A sound came from behind the wall.
Mila crying.
Tiny.
Terrified.
Derek’s head snapped toward it.
So did the men behind him.
The world narrowed to one sound.
My baby.
Derek lunged toward the hidden door.
I moved without thinking.
I grabbed a heavy glass lamp from the counter and swung it with every ounce of rage in my body.
It struck Derek’s shoulder and shattered.
He screamed and fell.
Luka’s guards surged forward.
Anna pulled me back.
The hidden door opened.
Mara appeared with Mila bundled against her chest.
I ran.
Then the window behind us cracked.
A red dot appeared on Luka’s chest.
He looked down.
Then at me.
“Get down.”
May you like
The shot came through the glass.
Luka fell.
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