Chapter 7 - The Trap at the North Gate
The wind howling off the bay was freezing, biting through my wool coat and chilling me to the bone. The stone steps leading down the cliffside to the north gate were slick with sea spray and midnight mist. Every footstep echoed faintly against the jagged rock face.
I clutched the cold metal key in my hand, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Lorenzo moved like a ghost behind me, his footsteps entirely silent against the wet stone. He had deployed his security team half an hour earlier, sealing every possible escape route from the cove below.
We reached the iron gate at the bottom of the cliff. The heavy rusted bars stood like prison walls against the churning black ocean.
"Here," Lorenzo whispered, his breath pluming in the cold air close to my ear.
I stepped forward and slipped the key onto the iron latch, letting it hang there in plain sight.
Suddenly, a flashlight beam cut through the darkness from the rocks below.
"Is it done?" a harsh voice hissed from the shadows of the cove.
A figure stepped out from behind a jagged boulder—tall, wearing a dark waterproof jacket, holding a suppressed pistol at his side. It wasn't one of the Moretti soldiers.
It was Marcus, the head of estate security.
My breath caught in my throat. Marcus—the man entrusted with protecting everyone inside the Duca estate—was the traitor.
Marcus reached for the key hanging on the latch, shining his flashlight beam upward and catching my face in the glare. A cruel smirk spread across his weathered features.
"Well, well, well," Marcus sneered, stepping closer. "The cleaning girl does as she's told. Too bad you won't live long enough to spend the reward money."
He raised the pistol, aiming straight at my chest.
I froze, terror locking my joints in place.
Before my finger could twitch, a dark shape dropped silently from the rock ledge above like a striking panther.
Lorenzo hit Marcus like a falling freight train, tackling the traitor hard against the iron gate. The pistol flew from Marcus's hand, clattering loudly across the wet stones and tumbling into the churning surf below.
The two men crashed into the rusted bars, a blur of fists, grunts, and desperate violence. Marcus fought with the frantic strength of a cornered animal, but Lorenzo moved with cold, calculating fury. With a sickening crunch, Lorenzo slammed Marcus's arm against the iron latch, dislocating the traitor's shoulder in one brutal motion.
Marcus screamed out in agony, collapsing hard onto the wet ground.
Three seconds later, half a dozen security guards emerged from the surrounding rocks, flashlights blazing, submachine guns pointed squarely at the fallen head of security.
Lorenzo stood over Marcus, breathing heavily, his dark coat damp with sea spray. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled off his right glove, letting it drop into the mud.
He looked down at Marcus with dead, merciless eyes.
"You had free room at my table, Marcus," Lorenzo's voice cut through the sound of the crashing waves like a razor blade. "You had my trust. And you sold it to a man who couldn't survive a week in my shoes."
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"You... you knew?" Marcus gasped, clutching his broken shoulder in agony.
"I knew the moment the key went missing from the master file," Lorenzo replied coldly. "I just needed to know who else was foolish enough to follow you."
