Chapter 8: The Viper's Strike
Lorenzo laughed, a dry, rasping sound that set Elena's teeth on edge. He raised the silenced pistol, the black barrel aimed directly at her chest. "Step aside, little lamb. You're playing a part you don't have the stomach for."
Behind her, Dante let out a sound of pure, unadulterated agony—not from his wounds, but from the sight of her in the line of fire. "Elena… get… down…"
Elena didn't move. She felt the letter opener in her pocket, its pointed edge biting into her thigh. She knew she couldn't outrun a bullet, but she knew this room better than Lorenzo did. She had spent the last hour staring at every corner while cleaning Dante's blood.
"You think I'm afraid of you?" Elena asked, her voice eerily calm. She took a slow step toward Lorenzo, her hands held out as if in surrender. "I've been held captive by a man ten times thedevil you'll ever be. You're just a scavenger picking at the scraps."
Lorenzo's eyes flared with anger. "Scavenger? I am the one holding the gun."
"And I'm the one holding the trigger," she whispered.
With a sudden, violent motion, Elena grabbed the heavy crystal decanter of scotch from the side table and hurled it at the floor at Lorenzo's feet. The glass shattered, spraying amber liquid and razor-sharp shards across the marble.
As Lorenzo instinctively flinched and shielded his eyes, Elena didn't run away. She lunged forward.
She pulled the letter opener from her pocket and drove it with all her strength into Lorenzo's thigh. He roared in pain, the pistol firing a muffled thud into the ceiling as he collapsed to one knee.
"Marco!" Elena screamed.
The door flew open. Marco didn't hesitate. He saw the gun in Lorenzo's hand and fired two shots into the man's chest before he could regain his footing. Lorenzo slumped forward, his blood mixing with the spilled scotch and the shattered glass.
Silence returned to the study, heavy and suffocating.
Marco rushed to Dante, but Dante's eyes were only on Elena. She was standing over Lorenzo's body, her hands shaking so violently the letter opener clattered to the floor. She was covered in a cocktail of scotch, dirt, and the blood of two different men.
"Elena," Dante wheezed.
She turned to him, her face a mask of shock. She had just helped kill a man. The innocence he had spent years tracking was officially shattered.
Dante reached out, his fingers hooking into the hem of her red silk dress, pulling her toward him until she fell to her knees by the sofa. He ignored his own agonizing pain, his hand trembling as it cupped her face.
"You saved me," he whispered, his voice thick with a new, terrifying kind of devotion.
"I didn't do it for you," Elena choked out, though her heart was hammering against her ribs for a reason she didn't want to admit. "I did it because I won't be a trophy for a man like him."
Dante pulled her closer, his forehead resting against hers. His scent—blood, gunpowder, and that dark cologne—wrapped around her like a shroud. "It doesn't matter why. You've tasted blood for me now, Elena. You're part of this world. You're mine more than you ever were before."
He looked up at Marco, his eyes regaining their lethal, freezing blue. "Clean this mess. And find out who let him into the house. If it was one of our own, I want their skin on my desk by morning."
Then, he looked back at Elena. "The wedding is in three days. And after tonight, I'm doubling the guard. No one touches my Queen."