Chapter 10 - The Bloodline and the Bullet
The morning sunlight was bright enough to force squinting, but inside Room 412, the atmosphere had turned electric with tension. Elena sat propped up against her pillows, looking bewildered as Luca re-entered the room with a long, tailored wool coat over his arm and a quiet army of security guards positioning themselves outside her door.
"Mr. Mancini... Luca... what's happening?" Elena asked, her voice trembling slightly as she clutched the hospital blanket to her chest. "The nurses said I have to stay here for at least four more days of observation."
"The nurses don't write the rules anymore, Elena," Luca said, walking to the side of her bed. His face was stern, carved from stone, but when he looked down at her, the harshness in his dark eyes softened into something ancient and fiercely protective. "You're leaving with me."
"Leaving with you? I don't even know you!" she protested, though her heart was hammering against her ribs not from fear, but from a strange, inexplicable pull she couldn't name. "You're a stranger who gave me your blood yesterday—I'm grateful, really I am, but I have foster services, I have school—"
"You have a family now," Luca interrupted, his voice dropping into a register that brook no argument. He reached out and gently laid a hand over her small, trembling fingers resting on the blanket. "And my name isn't just Luca. It's Luca Mancini."
Elena froze. Even a teenager living on the fringes of the city knew what the name Mancini meant. It wasn't just a name; it was a legend whispered in dark corners, a shadow that hung over the entire underworld of Chicago.
Before she could speak, the glass window of her hospital room door shattered into a thousand glittering pieces.
Crack!
A high-powered sniper round punched through the wall, embedding itself deep into the drywall inches above the headboard with a violent thud.
"Get down!" Luca roared, moving with terrifying speed. He threw his own body across the bed, shielding Elena beneath his broad shoulders and heavy coat just as a second round ricocheted off the window frame.
Outside in the corridor, automated gunfire erupted as Marco and the security detail engaged an unknown assailant who had just breached the sixth-floor stairwell. Alarms began to shriek through the hospital speakers, red emergency strobe lights flashing against the white walls.
Elena screamed, burying her face against Luca’s chest, trembling violently as the deafening roar of war echoed all around them.
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Luca held her tight, his hand resting securely against the back of her head, his eyes locked onto the shattered doorway with a cold, terrifying fury. They wanted a war? They wanted to take the only piece of humanity he had left?
Let them come. Because tonight, the bloodline they thought they had buried was going to burn them all to ash.
