Married to the mafia King

As we continued down the stone tunnel, it felt like I was in a horror movie.

The thugs’ flashlight beams barely lit our way…

The Turk’s gun pressed into the back of my head…

And every step brought me closer to betraying the man I loved.

His death and his brothers’ deaths would be all my fault.

We finally reached the servants’ passageway.

From there, it was just 20 paces to the secret door near the chapel.

Once we were in the hallway, the thugs formed a protective circle with me and the Turk at the center. Their footsteps tapped lightly on the tiled floors as they moved through the dark house.

Then we reached the grand staircase in the foyer.

“Go,” the Turk whispered.

Six men went up the stairs, pistols at the ready.

I realized that there was one gunman for each brother

Adriano, Massimo, Roberto, Niccolo, Valentino…

…and Dario.

As I stood there with tears streaming down my face, I wanted to scream and warn them but it wouldn’t have done any good.

The tape over my mouth would have muffled any sound I made and there were still six thugs around me and the Turk. Any one of them would kill me if I made the slightest sound.

I just prayed that one of the brothers would hear the assassins and alert the others…

…before it was too late.

“In just a moment,” the Turk whispered in my ear, “all six Rosolinis will be dead, and their empire will be ”

He never finished the sentence because gunshots cut him off.

I could see the muzzle flashes in the dark all around us.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

I shrieked under the tape on my mouth, sure that I would die

But it was the Turk’s men who dropped to the ground dead.

“WHAT?!” the Turk roared.

He pulled me up against him as a human shield and pressed his gun to my right temple.

Three men dressed in black came out of the darkness, their pistols pointed right at us.

Adriano…

Valentino…

And Dario.

“Let her go,” Dario said quietly, his voice steady.

“STOP!” the Turk screamed. “STOP, OR I’LL KILL HER!”

Dario put his arms up and pointed his pistol at the ceiling. “Adriano, Valentino… lower your guns and get back.”

Adriano tried to protest. “But ”

“DO IT.”

Adriano and Valentino pointed their guns at the floor, then slowly stepped backwards into the shadows.

“There,” Dario said. “They’ve backed off. Now let her go.”

The Turk laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“If you let her go, I’ll let you walk out of here unharmed. You have my word.”

“Your word,” the Turk sneered. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No, but you must think I am. Otherwise, why would you keep stalling?”

The Turk didn’t say anything.

“Do you hear that?” Dark asked.

There was only silence.

“There’s nothing to hear,” the Turk snapped.

“Exactly. All the men you sent upstairs are dead,” Dario said. “My brothers killed your assassins upstairs at the exact same moment we shot your men down here. It’s over. Let her go.”

The Turk became enraged. He tightened his left arm around my neck and jammed his gun harder into my skull.

“You fucking bitch traitor!” he hissed in my ear.

“She had nothing to do with it,” Dario said. “We were watching you on camera from the moment you came through the wall.”

The Turk wheezed like he had been punched. “But… there weren’t supposed to be any cameras…”

“Did you really think I would leave my entire estate unguarded? Now, stop pointing your gun at her… and aim it at me.”

The Turk stepped backwards and dragged me along with him.

“Aim your gun at me,” Dario repeated calmly.

I could hardly see him anymore, my eyes were so blurry with tears.

“Why bother?” the Turk hissed. “You’ll kill me no matter what.”

“No, I won’t and neither will my brothers. I swear on my father’s grave.”

“And why should I believe you?”

“Because I’ll take her place,” Dario said calmly.

I tried to scream NO! beneath the tape over my mouth.

“Shhh, it’s fine,” he said to me in a calm voice, then looked back at the Turk. “Take me hostage, and you’ll walk out of here a free man. All you have to do is aim your gun at me, not her.”

The Turk hesitated then demanded, “Get rid of your pistol first.”

“Alright… don’t shoot.”

Dario leaned over slowly, set his gun on the floor, and kicked it gently over to the Turk. Then he held up his hands.

“I’m defenseless. Take your gun away from her… and aim it at me.”

I could hear the Turk breathing behind my ear.

I could feel the barrel of his gun pressed against my head.

Suddenly the pressure went away, and I saw the gun swing out over my shoulder towards Dario.

I screamed into the duct tape covering my mouth.

“Fool,” the Turk snarled

And then there was a single flash of light up on the second floor, a muffled PTOK

And the Turk fell away from me, his arm sliding off my neck.

I stood there trembling as the bastard’s body thudded on the floor behind me.

Dario raced towards me and wrapped me up in his strong arms.

I hung onto him, finally safe.

After a second, he pulled away so he could see my face.

“Are you alright?” he whispered.

I nodded.

He smiled at me, happier than I had ever seen him before. “Let’s not ever do that again.”

I laughed behind the tape on my mouth.

“Is everyone all right?” Dario yelled as he felt for the edge of the tape on my face.

“We’re fine!” someone yelled from the third floor Massimo, by the sound of it.

“This is going to hurt,” Dario warned me right before he peeled the tape off my face.

But after everything I had been through, the pain was nothing.

As soon as the tape was off, he asked, “Are you really okay?”

“Yes!” I cried out happily, tears streaming down my cheeks

And he kissed me passionately.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back as hard as I could.

“Hey get a room!” Niccolo’s voice called down from the second floor.

Dario and I broke off the kiss and laughed.

I looked up to see Niccolo, Massimo, and Roberto on the second floor, dressed in black and beaming. Behind them were another dozen armed men, the foot soldiers of the Rosolini family. They were cheering and giving each other high-fives.

Another figure came down the stairs, a high-powered rifle slung over his shoulder. He pulled off his black balaclava to reveal a shock of blond hair.

“Are you alright?” Lars asked me worriedly.

“What, you couldn’t see that from the kiss?” Niccolo shouted from above.

“I’m fine!” I assured Lars.

He looked strained and haggard. “That was the most stressful shot of my entire life.”

Dario put his hand on Lars’s shoulder. “I knew you could do it. That’s why I entrusted it to you.”

Lars nodded, and I hugged him. He finally relaxed and laughed as he hugged me back.

“Can we bring everyone out?” Valentino asked.

“You just want to look like the big hero,” Niccolo teased him.

“Hey, you heard her earlier,” Valentino said as he pointed at me. “She told me to take care of my lady!”

“Fine, whatever,” Niccolo said.

Valentino went down the hall and opened up a door. “It’s alright you’re safe you can come out now!”

Two dozen servants streamed into the hall, including a handful of armed foot soldiers who had been guarding them.

The servants were all dressed in pajamas like they had been pulled out of their beds just moments before.

Caterina was among them. She ran into Valentino’s arms, and he kissed her as he swung her around in the air.

Lars went over to control the crowd.

“What happened?” I asked Dario as I stared at the servants.

“When we saw you were coming on the surveillance cameras, we got everyone out of bed,” he explained. “But we couldn’t risk taking anyone outside in case the Turk noticed… so we hid them and had my men protect them.”

In an instant, I remembered my role in all of this. “I’m sorry, Dario I’m so sorry they had my father ”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” he whispered. “None of this would have happened if I’d hadn’t been a fool and let you go.”

I broke down sobbing in his arms as he held me.

“It’s alright,” he murmured in my ear. “I’m never letting you go ever again.”

Then I thought of something else. “My father he’s in the trunk of one of the cars at the base of the hill!”

“We’ll send someone right away,” Dario promised, then turned around. “Adriano, her father’s in one of the Turk’s cars take some men down there and free him.”

“Should I search the bodies up here for keys?” Adriano asked.

Dario moved away from me as he and Adriano discussed searching the Turk’s men for keys.

That’s when I saw her.

Filomena.

The old woman moved like a sleepwalker out of the crowd of servants, her frail body draped in a white nightgown down to her ankles.

I thought she might look at me, and I dreaded meeting her gaze

But something was wrong.

Her eyes were fixed on Dario and nothing else.

My eyes dropped to her arm by her side.

It was hard to see because of the servants and people crisscrossing between us

But I finally spied something small and black in her hand.

A gun.

She was 12 feet away from Dario and getting closer.

If I shouted, there was no guarantee that they would know who to shoot

And if I screamed her name, it would alert her

And she might take the shot.

I had only a second to actBelonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

And I made my choice.

I bent down and grabbed the gun that Dario had kicked over to the Turk.

I prayed that it was no more complicated than I had seen in the movies

And I began to walk towards her as fast as I could.

Filomena started to raise her arm.

No one saw except me

Because no one suspected an old woman would kill anyone.

Niccolo saw, though it was too late.

“GUN!” he screamed as he reached for his holstered pistol

But by that time Filomena was only six feet away from Dario. Her arm raised the gun towards his head

Which is when I fired.

BANG!

She jerked and fell to the floor.

Dario glanced down at her in shock, then looked at me with wide eyes.

I stood staring down at her body, the gun shaking in my hands as smoke curled up into the air.