Chapter 3 - The Blood-Stained Cell
""Boss,"" the soldier wheezed, keeping his head bowed to avoid witnessing Serena's interrogation. ""The perimeter at the harbor just collapsed. The Moretti crew breached the southern docks. Marco is dead.""
The air shifted from an intimate domestic crisis back into the cutthroat violence of Christian's daily reality. He slowly released Serena's collar, allowing her to stagger backward against the wall. The name Moretti was a ghost Christian had spent three years trying to eradicate. If they were hitting the docks now, it meant there was a leak at the highest executive tier of his organization.
""How many?"" Christian asked without turning, his tone instantly recalibrating into cold military precision.
""At least a dozen heavily armed men, Boss. They didn't come for the cargo. They came for the manifests. They're hunting names.""
Christian closed his eyes briefly, calculating logistics and tactical responses in seconds. When he opened them, the darkness inside was absolute. ""Send the second battalion to secure the perimeter. Tell Dante to execute every single man wearing Moretti colors. Leave none to interrogate; their presence alone is an answer.""
""Understood,"" the soldier nodded, sprinting back toward the courtyard as sirens in the distance began to wail their faint, mechanical lament.
Christian turned his attention back to Serena. The maid had folded into herself, hands clasped tightly against her chest, listening to the horrifying orders roll off his tongue with casual cruelty. She knew this world. She had worked inside his compound long before she escaped into hiding.
""We are not finished,"" Christian told her, his voice flat. ""If you try to take that child and run while my back is turned, my men will shoot you before you reach the front gates. Am I clear?""
""She is an innocent, Christian,"" Serena choked through her tears. ""She doesn't belong in this nightmare. She has your stubbornness, yes, but she doesn't have your darkness!""
The confirmation struck him harder than any bullet ever had. She has your stubbornness. Christian’s jaw locked. The child was his. Mia was his flesh and blood, born in exile, raised in poverty, brought right back into the lion's den by the cruel irony of fate.
""You kept my blood in squalor while you washed other people's floors?"" Christian snarled, his anger finally breaking through his stoic façade.
""I kept her alive!"" Serena screamed back, the desperation of motherhood overpowering her terror. ""Look at your life! Blood on the floors, men dying at your docks! Is that what a father gives his child?""
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Christian turned sharply on his heel, walking swiftly away toward the solarium before he lost control of his temper. As he opened the door to the sunlit glass room, Julian stood near the window, his gun unholstered and held at his side. Mia sat atop a velvet bench, eating a bowl of cut strawberries, swinging her little feet happily.
""Boss,"" Julian whispered, nodding toward the courtyard outside the high glass panels. ""We have a sniper glare on the south treeline. They’re not just at the docks. They're here.""
