CHAPTER FIVE - FIRE AND BLOOD

FIRE AND BLOOD

The night hit Palermo like a fist. Rain spattered against the palazzo’s shutters, mingling with the scent of smoke and gunpowder. Lucia Romano moved through the halls with the practiced grace of someone who had lived a lifetime among predators, but tonight, the predators were coming to her.

The first shots rang out like the cracking of a whip. Metal screamed against metal as bullets shredded the reinforced doors. Enzo Santoro and a handful of loyal lieutenants leapt into action, dragging the boy from the nursery as chaos erupted around them.

“They’re inside!” Enzo barked, firing a shot through a door that had already been splintered by a high-caliber round.

Lucia’s pulse pounded in rhythm with the gunfire. She grabbed a pair of pistols from the cabinet, cold steel burning her palms. Every sense screamed danger. Every shadow could hide death.

The attackers moved fast, masked and armed with military precision. They had studied her holdings, learned the weak points. They had come for the boy, for her, for the power that radiated from the Valenti bloodline.

Lucia did not hesitate. She met the first intruder in the hallway, a man tall and strong, a knife in his hand. She sidestepped his swing, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it with a savage snap. He screamed, the sound swallowed by the storm outside. She slammed him against the wall, punching him into unconsciousness before another could strike.

Bullets tore through the walls around her, splintering wood, shattering glass. Fire ignited a drapery, flames licking the edges of the room, smoke curling like black snakes. She moved through the chaos, a whirlwind of violence, her body a weapon.

Enzo covered her flank, taking down attackers with precise, brutal efficiency. Together they fought a war within their own home.

The boy cried, terror cutting through the din. Lucia scooped him up, pressing him to her chest as she moved through the hallways. Every step brought another threat—men falling from above, hidden blades flashing, gunshots ricocheting from every surface.

A thug lunged at her with a crowbar. She pivoted, catching his arm mid-swing, twisting, and sending him crashing into the wall. Blood spattered her arm, warm and sticky, but she did not flinch.

“Keep him safe!” she screamed to Enzo, her voice barely audible over the storm.

Enzo nodded, dragging a wounded man into cover, firing without mercy. Loyalty and survival intertwined in every shot, every strike.

Flames spread quickly, the fire alarm useless in the chaos. Smoke filled the corridors, burning eyes and lungs. Lucia pressed on, moving the boy toward the safe room, her mind calculating every possibility.

Another explosion shattered the main entrance. She stumbled back as the hallway shook, plaster and debris falling around her. One of the attackers—lean, fast, masked—slammed a gun into her side. Pain shot through her ribs, but adrenaline overrode it. She kicked him backward, seized a shard of broken wood, and drove it into his chest. He went down with a strangled scream, blood hot and wet across her hand.

The boy screamed louder, and her fury became a blade sharper than any steel. Whoever had thought they could take him from her would regret it.

In the chaos, she saw shadows moving differently—strategic, patient. Someone was leading the attackers, someone not afraid of fire or blood. Her instincts screamed Guerrero’s shadow, though she knew he was far away.

She fought through corridor after corridor, taking down men who underestimated her, who thought a woman could not spill as much blood as she could. Every move was calculated, violent, precise. Bones cracked. Faces were shattered. Guns clicked empty.

Enzo grabbed a man attempting to sneak past them into the safe room, smashing his head against a wall with such force it echoed through the halls. Lucia pulled the boy close, and for the first time, she allowed herself a thought beyond survival: this child would remember this night. He would remember fire and blood and a mother who would kill to protect him.

By the time the last intruder fell—or fled into the night—Lucia and her small group were bloodied, torn, exhausted. The safe room was secure, but the palazzo bore the scars of war: walls scorched, doors broken, fires smoldering.

Lucia pressed her hands to the boy’s small body, feeling his rapid heartbeat. “They will never take you,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Never. Not now, not ever.”

Enzo approached, nodding grimly. “This was no random attack,” he said. “They came prepared, organized. Someone is building something against us. Against the boy.”

Lucia’s eyes narrowed, her mind already racing through possibilities, enemies, betrayals. “Then we make them regret it,” she said. “All of them.”

Lightning split the sky, and in the sudden illumination, she glimpsed movement across the rooftops. A figure paused, watching, patient. A warning. A shadow of what was to come.

Palermo would not forget tonight. The blood had been spilled. The fire had been set. And the boy, fragile and small, had survived against impossible odds.

The night ended not with peace, but with an echo: a message left in burned wood and blood. Someone was still alive. Someone who had not yet revealed themselves.

And the storm—silent, patient, inevitable—was gathering strength.

The boy is gone! Lucia blurted out

Lucia stared into the darkness, her body trembling, her heart racing,

No he was sound asleep the last two seconds upon your entry Enzo replied half breath, his blood ran cold …. As he breezed into the nursery his spittle dried up entirely .

How?………

What have you done Enzo! Lucia blurted out

Blood filling her eyes instead of tears. All adrenaline let loosed in her body,

My son!!

Only but half a minute I Left him under your care………..ENZO???

I swear on the grey hairs of your father's between,

That your generation will be wiped out if a hair of my son falls to the ground……. Lucia paused!.

“THERE”……..

WHERE?.........

“Look”