Chapter 58

  ? Mind Over Caliber ?

  "Don't move."

  Pablo's words were simple, as his eyes never left Olivia and Katie.

  Olivia and Katie froze, staring at the bodyguard sprawled across the floor, dark blood spreading across his side. Panic hit Katie like a physical blow. She swung the wheelchair all the way back toward the lounge, her hands gripping the handles tightly, twisting with full force to shield her daughter. The sharp curve nearly tipped Olivia out of the chair. The girl’s hands shot to the armrests, clutching desperately, heart hammering as the joy of the evening vanished, replaced by pure terror.

  A gunshot ripped through the corridor.

  In the stairs, Emilio froze. Two of his henchmen snapped their grips tighter on their weapons. The air thickened with sudden, sharp tension.

  From the first floor, Dante’s voice rang out, urgent and strained. “Alex! Olivia! Lady Katie!” His shouts bounced off the walls, laced with fear. The shot had made his heart jump — without a second thought, he sprinted upward, following the sound.

  Meanwhile, in one of the private rooms, away from the guests’ eyes, Silvano flinched at the report. He rose from his chair, his bloodied axe resting heavy in his hands, two bodyguards flanking him. On the floor, a captured assassin lay slumped, unconscious, bruised and battered beyond recognition. The sight was haunting, a silent testament to the brutality he wielded behind closed doors. Without a word, Silvano strode from the room, leaving a trail of panic and dread in his wake.

  Beneath the back stairs, Alex blinked awake, disoriented. The haze Pablo had left him under had faded, leaving only the quiet creak of the stairwell and the faint, distant rumble of chaos above.

  Katie stumbled, a grunt escaping her lips. Olivia’s head whipped around.

  “Ma!”

  Pain exploded in Katie’s leg as a bullet tore through her balance. She hit the floor, clutching the wound, teeth gritting against the scream rising in her throat.

  “Go, Olivia! GO!” she cried, voice ragged.

  Olivia’s hands trembled on the wheels, knuckles white as she gripped the armrests. Her chest heaved with panic. Every fiber of her body screamed to leap forward, to sprint, to reach her mother — to pull her away from danger. Her legs, however, refused to obey, locked in their betrayal by the wheelchair. She twisted, leaning forward, heart hammering, but the chair held her fast, anchoring her in place as terror stole her breath.

  Her eyes flicked to Pablo, revolver in hand, and Alphonse advancing behind him. Both men were taut, muscles coiled, eyes flashing with the strange mix of fear and ruthless calculation. Olivia’s gaze snapped back to her mother, lying on the floor, and a scream clawed at her throat. Her body tensed, a desperate, paralyzed mix of rage and helplessness.

  Alphonse hissed sharply, voice slicing through the fear.

  “Idiot! You’re going to alarm the whole hotel! Why did you shoot her?”

  Pablo’s jaw tightened. “We're out of time already! No time to chase! And that’s Silvano’s granddaughter! We can use her as leverage and buy time!”

  “Buy time for what?! It’s just the two of us now!” Alphonse shouted, panic threading his words.

  “We still have men outside! Waiting for our signal!” Pablo barked back. "She would have resisted if I didn't shoot!"

  Without another word, Pablo raised the revolver and fired. The shot tore through the corridor toward the lounge window.

  Glass shivered violently, fragments scattering like silver rain across the polished floor.

  Outside, a few passers-by and lingering guests, catching a breath of air or lingering to watch the burned carriage collapse to ash, froze in alarm. Unaware to Pablo, his signal reached no one alive. The men he hoped to call in had already been gone.

  Inside, the lobby remained blissfully ignorant. Music floated on, drowned out the faint cracks of gunfire above. Only a few glimpsed the panic at the windows as curiosity intertwined.

  Katie, still on the floor, surged with what little strength remained, slamming her hands into Pablo’s leg. He jerked back, raising the gun to threaten the mother to let him go. Olivia’s scream pierced the air.

  “NOOO! MAAA!”

  But Katie wouldn't let go.

  Pablo tried shoved Katie aside.

  “Get off me!”

  Then — a knock, sharp and authoritative, came from two doors down the corridor.

  “Who—” Pablo started, voice tight.

  A man’s annoyed voice called out.

  “What’s all this commotion? Can’t a person sleep in here?”

  Katie was about to scream, “HEL—” but Pablo knelt quickly, muffling her with one hand, pressing the revolver gently to her head with the other, shushing her with urgency. He nudged Alphonse toward the door.

  Alphonse hesitated, then called out from his spot, trying to explain.

  “Sorry, sir! It's another round of fireworks!”

  The same voice barked from inside the room:

  “What? I couldn’t hear you!”

  Alphonse drew a ragged breath, letting it out slowly as if trying to summon calm from the storm pounding in his chest. His eyes flicked to the door with a mix of caution and resolve.

  Step by step, he moved forward, each footfall measured, silent against the polished corridor floor. He squared his shoulders, straightened, and positioned himself fully in front of the door, the entirety of his body exposed.

  His voice rose, strained but firm, trying to pierce the silence inside.

  “Can you hear me now?"

  Silence answered at first. The pause stretched, all the air in the hall tightening around it — a small, dangerous vacuum. Then, after a few heartbeats, the voice came back. Not annoyed this time. Not impatient. Calm. Almost satisfied.

  “…Yes.”

  Alphonse swallowed and raised his tone again. “I said—”

  The rest never came.

  A thunderous crack split the air. The door exploded outward, wood splintering as a shotgun blast tore through it. Shards flew into the corridor like lethal rain. Alphonse didn’t even flinch—one heartbeat he stood, the next he collapsed in a spray of crimson, the echo of the shot hanging in the hall like a curse.

  Katie and Olivia screamed, frozen, eyes wide as the world seemed to tilt around them.

  It was none other than Dominick.

  Pablo’s breath hitched. Every rumor he’d ever heard — every whispered tale of the Undertaker — suddenly had a face. The man’s silhouette filled the doorway, tall and quiet as the grave he was named for. His eyes behind the glasses were calm, unreadable, the kind of stillness that only existed in men who had long stopped fearing death.

  Pablo panicked. He raised his revolver and fired twice at the figure stepping out. The muzzle flash bloomed, deafening in the narrow space. Dominick slid back into the room behind its wall, steady hands gripping his shotgun, perfectly composed beneath the return fire as he took cover.

  Pablo’s fingers trembled. He was outmatched. He knew it.

  He grabbed Katie by the hair, pressing the revolver hard against her temple. She was still on the ground, her leg slick with blood, her breath hitching between sobs.

  “Come out with your hands in the air, or I shoot the lady!”

  Silence filled the corridor.

  Then Dominick’s voice — low, even, the voice of someone who already knew how the story would end.

  “What’s wrong? Out of ammunition?”

  “I’ll do it!” Pablo shouted, his voice cracking.

  “I don’t know what model that is,” Dominick said from behind the wall, his tone unhurried. “But as far as I know… revolvers come in two models. Five chambers, or six. I heard two earlier. You just fired two more. That’s four.”

  “Doesn’t matter!” Pablo barked. “Whatever is left is enough to kill her!”

  Dominick’s answer was quiet — so quiet it forced everyone in the hall to listen.

  “But what about after you kill her?”

  The words hit like thunder. Olivia froze; breath snagged in her chest. Katie’s sobs stuttered and then faded into a weak grip on Pablo’s sleeve. Pablo’s color drained; the bravado cracked into something raw and small.

  Dominick tilted his head, watching the man unravel as if he were inspecting a cheap suit. “Say you shoot her,” he went on, flat as a ledger. “Then what? You’ll have fired a chamber. You won’t have the rounds left to stop me when I step forward. A five-shot revolver’ll be empty fast.”

  The implication wasn’t pity. It was a calculation — life reduced to numbers, timing, and consequence.

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  “If it’s a six chambers revolver, which are rare… you’ll have one shot.”

  A click— the sound of Dominick readying the shotgun.

  “Just one. Then, you'll need to reload. If you have more bullets, that is."

  Pablo’s lips parted. For the first time that night, the fire in his eyes dimmed. The weight of futility pressed against him, stripping away the illusion of control, of justice, of purpose.

  Then came the voice— sharp, cutting, final.

  "Which one are you? Alphonse? Rafael? Pablo? Dimitri? Doesn't matter. Looked up all of the waiters. None of you are seasoned enough to make me worry in a gunfight based on your backgrounds."

  "Still think you can win that bet with whatever little practice you had?”

  Every drop of blood in the place froze. Katie’s breath hitched. Olivia’s hands clutched her chair. Pablo stared blankly, the words striking like a blade through the fog of his madness. Dominick as always, did his research on every waiter in the hotel, including him.

  And farther down the corridor, in the shadows near the corner, a figure froze.

  Don Emilio.

  He had arrived just in time to hear the words. His eyes widened. For the first time in decades, Don Emilio, the one who had trusted Dominick like a son, felt the seed of doubt take root. Was he so confident in the gamble? Or... was he simply not caring enough of Katie and Olivia—family members— being in the middle of the fire?

  Behind him, his bodyguards had their guns raised, trained on Pablo — but their gazes flicked uneasily between the hostage, the little girl and the assassin.

  Silvano just arrived and burst into the corridor, axe in hand, hair wild and breath short.

  “Let me go! Olivia is there!” he shouted, trying to force past Emilio’s arm.

  Emilio flinched but caught him by the chest. “Stay put!”

  The guards moved to flank the Don, eyes darting between the hall and the open door.

  Dominick, still behind the corner of his room, pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered under his breath — a low, disgusted growl.

  Down the corridor, Pablo froze. That voice — Silvano. One of his other targets... and one that wouldn't let a finger reach Olivia, unlike Dominick, who Pablo had no leverage against.

  His gaze shifted sharply toward the girl behind him who sat frozen in her chair.

  “Nonno,” she whispered, voice breaking as she spotted her grandfather. "Help us..."

  Pablo abandoned Katie instantly. Two strides and he was at the wheelchair, seizing the handles before anyone could move. “I got the girl!” he barked, revolver raised. “Does none of you care about the girl either?! Show me how much more of monsters you are, damn Marvianos!”

  Katie screamed, “OLIVIA!” and tried to rise, but her knees gave out.

  Olivia’s eyes welled. The tears came sudden, panicked — and Dante, who had just reached the landing, froze mid-step. The joy that had colored the girl’s face hours ago was gone; all that light had been replaced by a raw, helpless cry. He felt his chest twist.

  “Everyone drop your weapons!” Pablo shouted. “Dominick — I want to see that shotgun thrown out of the room!”

  He crouched slightly, whispering near Olivia’s ear, “Don’t worry, little girl. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  But she only sobbed harder, her mind far from his words.

  For a heartbeat, his face faltered seeing the girl like that, something like doubt flashing in his eyes, before he steeled himself again.

  "Sacrifices are needed. Always were."

  Emilio lifted a hand, motioning his guards to comply. Their pistols clattered one by one onto the tiles, sliding down the corridor. Only one sound missing — Dominick’s shotgun.

  “Dominick!” Silvano’s roar cracked the air. "Obey!"

  Finally, the shotgun slid out, spinning once before stopping.

  “Stupid emotional idiots,” Dominick thought to himself. “I could’ve taken him if none of you showed up.”

  Katie crawled forward, trembling. “Please! Leave my daughter!”

  “I’m terribly sorry, madam,” Pablo said, already steering the wheelchair backward, revolver trained forward.

  Olivia reached out, hand brushing empty air toward her mother’s fingertips. “Maa—”

  Pablo’s tone hardened as he reached the front of Dominick's door. “Dominick, step out with your hands in the air.”

  Dominick appeared in the doorway — slow, calm, his steps measured. He ignored the command, kneeling beside Katie instead. He uncorked a small bottle of alcohol he didn't drink from, pouring it gently on her wound. She winced, teeth clenched, but her eyes never left the man threatening her child.

  Emilio’s gaze cut toward him, questioning and unaware that Dominick played the part, pressing a cloth to Katie’s shoulder like a dutiful savior.

  "This is for just in case Don Emilio heard me earlier. Don't want him thinking I don't care much."

  His tone was almost casual at Katie. “Easy now. You’ll live.” His movements were neat, deliberate— a strange calm in the chaos.

  “Hands in the air, I said!” Pablo snapped.

  Dominick didn’t even glance up.

  “Just keep walking. I’m unarmed, as you see. You planning to shoot a man treating a wounded lady?”

  His glasses caught the corridor’s light as he raised his head slightly — enough to let his eyes settle on the revolver, recognizing and confirming the model. Then his voice rose, crisp and clear, not quite directed at Pablo. “Five chambers. One bullet left. You shoot me, you don't leave. Use that bullet wisely.”

  Pablo hesitated, then kicked the shotgun away from Dominick’s reach, sending it skittering down the hall.

  He started moving again, dragging Olivia’s chair toward the end of the corridor, where the stairs and the elevator waited for him.

  Around him, the Dons and their men watched in a taut semicircle — Silvano trembling with fury, Emilio holding him back, the henchmen frozen in place, hands half-raised, eyes following the barrel of Pablo’s revolver. The corridor felt smaller with every step he took, the silence stretched to breaking.

  Dominick’s hand hovered over the revolver tucked in his back pocket. He could’ve drawn, could’ve ended it, but Katie’s eyes were locked on Olivia, panic raw and piercing. One scream, one desperate cry if she noticed Dominick's hidden revolver being drawn, and Pablo’s attention would snap—he’d fire to Dominick out in the open.

  Risky.

  So he stayed crouched, eyes cold behind the glasses, waiting...

  Pablo reached the elevator landing and jabbed a word into the shafts, more a command than a question. “Lift!” he barked —

  Nothing answered.

  He spat under his breath. “What the hell is the operator doing?” he hissed.

  A bodyguard flinched. Pablo snapped, “Stay put!”. Silvano’s joints cracked as he strained against Emilio’s hold, the axe clutched like a promise of ruin.

  Dante, small and unnoticed in the swarm of the huge broad men, scanned for anything, wanting to act, wanting to save. His feet were ready to move. But for now... there was no opening.

  Pablo’s mind raced. Stairs or elevator. Elevator for some reason is taking forever. The stairs were the only way out.

  He thought fast.

  "I have a chance to regroup with the other team... They should be downstairs or outside... I will make a run for it and take the girl as hostage!"

  He tightened his grip on the crying Olivia, lifting her slowly from her chair, one arm locked around her slight frame, the other holding the revolver close to his chest. The girl felt light against him, almost impossibly small for someone fourteen. No resistance at all came from her as she was having a hard time even breathing properly.

  Pablo glanced down the stairwell. The lights were off. A cold prick ran along his spine.

  “Who turned the lights off? Doesn't look like it's their doing... I swear they were on one minute ago.” he snarled under his breath, but there was no time. He could see enough to step.

  First step. Second. He felt the wood under his boots and told himself straight into his teeth: now.

  “Good... now, goodbye,” he thought, and he took aim at Silvano.

  "You didn't die in vain, Alphonse! Viva i Marcetti! Viva Portenzo City!!!"

  But in the third step...

  The stairs felt somehow—

  Uneven.

  He didn’t see the shadow until the world tipped.

  It was a boy.

  Small, folded into the dark like a piece of the stair itself. Alex— the same child Pablo had written off as sentimental. In the dim, Alex was nothing more than a low shape, a wedge across the tread. Pablo’s foot caught on that small body and the world pitched.

  The child's frame and wits had done what no strength or height could: it stopped the hunter cold. The darkness of the stairwell, the boy’s precise timing, and his tiny body made Pablo lose his momentum, his advantage — all in one breathless instant. The one bullet he had left tore through the air, grazing Silvano’s ear in a flash of blood before vanishing into the wall.

  Dominick, hearing the chaos, sprinted towards his shotgun on the ground.

  Dante lunged without thinking. He dove toward the tumble, not to strike Pablo but to reach for the hostage. He threw himself between the falling man and Olivia, palms fanning to protect her head. The three of them collapsed in a ragged heap: Dante braced over the girl, Olivia small and sobbing against his chest; Pablo, heavier and off-balance, tumbled backward, the revolver slipping from his grip.

  The gun skittered, clinked, and came to rest on a step where Emilio’s boot landed a heartbeat later. One of the bodyguards snatched at it and secured the weapon before it could be a second danger.

  Silvano found purchase first.

  "ON MY GRANDDAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY?!"

  He reached Pablo in two long, savage strides, raising the axe in a single, dark arc— a motion born of muscle and temper.

  Suddenly—

  Alex flung himself across Pablo’s back, chest smashing into the man’s shoulder, arms spread on his back. The axe’s arc clipped empty air.

  "Out of the way, Alex!" Silvano’s roar choked into a raw, strangled sound. He couldn't swing with that small, live body pressed to the man he meant to strike. The axe trembled in his grip, suspended between anger and the sudden, awful calculation that the blow would kill a child.

  Then—

  Cold iron met Don Silvano's spine.

  A shotgun muzzle pressed between his shoulder blades, unmoving.

  It was Dominick.

  His finger rested steady on the trigger.

  The stairwell froze.

  Behind Dominick, another click broke the silence.

  A second gun slid into view, pressed against his temple.

  Emilio had appeared on the landing above, his silhouette hard in the dim.

  “Enough,” he breathed. The barrel of his revolver caught a vein of light, unwavering, intimate, final. "Silvano, lower your axe."

  For one dizzy second, no one dared exhale.

  The three men stood locked in a geometry of violence.

  The bodyguards’ faces split into disbelief. They’d never seen the three raise weapons at each other; the sight cracked something fundamental in their heads.

  Silvano inhaled and exhaled, then backed off. One of the guards moved to shove Alex off Pablo’s back. The boy looked at Pablo and the look said everything without words. "I told you to leave...".

  Dominick’s gaze caught that as the corner of his mouth tightening. He understood what it meant, and the problem it spelled— a silent mercy from his nephew that could tilt endanger his sister, Elena.

  Dominick’s hand tightened on the shotgun. The next action was swift, brutal, absolute.

  “Make way,”

  he said to the henchmen still holding Pablo down.

  They obeyed without a word, stepping aside.

  Pablo blinked up through the haze— dizzy from the fall and the noise.

  In that fractured instant, he thought he’d seen both heaven and hell: the angel, a child who had shielded him till the end… and the devil, standing above him, calm and final.

  “Kill me... Kill ten more of me... The Marcettis don’t die." he said.

  Then, he shouted, snapping himself from the diziness of the fall in the stairs.

  "We rise! And every time you close your eyes, you’ll hear us breathing!”

  "This city will choke on our name!"

  "The will of Don Enzo will live forever among us young men!"

  "And one day it will happen!"

  "ALL OF YOU!"

  "CARLO! EMILIO! SILVANO! DOMINICK!"

  "YOU WILL ALL DIE!"

  "AND PORTENZO CITY WILL BE FREE!"

  "YOU WILL—"

  Pablo thought he was ready...

  Until he wasn't.

  His convictions didn't mean nothing the moment Dominick put the shotgun in a spot that made his skin crawl... in his mouth.

  His body wanted to live. His instincts screamed for him to find a way to survive.

  One last look at Alex.

  But Alex... unlike the guilt he felt so far all along. Zack. The Veracci dead henchmen. Giovanni and Robert...

  This time, he was... convinced.

  There was nothing more he can for the man.

  Earlier... the boy's body jumped on its own to shield him.

  But now, his mind is clear.

  Alex averted his eyes...

  No apology. No guilt.

  He was just bracing himself... for the incoming loud sound.

  Then...

  The blast erased everything.

  Pablo folded backward off the stair, body jerking once before the weight of him went slack. Blood darkened the wall and the wood where his head struck. The corridor swallowed the echo— a dull, closing sound, but every man on those stairs saw it, and it branded itself behind their eyes.

  Silvano froze mid-step, halfway toward Dante and the crying girl in his arms.

  Then fury split his voice.

  “Dominick! He was mine!”

  Dominick lowered the gun just enough to speak, his tone cutting clean through the smoke.

  “Just a young man following orders, Don Silvano. No need to torture more of 'em with your axe. But the body’s yours, if you still need to prove a point.”

  Emilio moved then, climbing toward the suite level. Katie’s scream carried from above, sharp and terrified; she’d heard the shot and thought the worst.

  Below, Alex reached Dante and Olivia.

  The boy knelt, trembling, checking them both— Olivia sobbing against Dante’s chest,

  Dante half-conscious, blood on his temple but breathing.

  No head wounds.

  For the first time in hours, the hotel’s upper suites could breathe again.

  The smoke thinned. The echoes faded.

  But the silence that followed felt heavier than the gunshot itself.

  Thank you for reading :)