Chapter 4 – The First Attack
The rain began just after midnight.
Thunder rolled across the hills surrounding the Duca estate, shaking the tall windows as lightning flashed over the iron gates.
Inside the mansion, almost everyone had gone to bed.
Almost.
Alessandro sat alone in his study, replaying Daniel Alvarez's video for the fourth time.
"...One of the investors has direct access to Alessandro Duca..."
Those words refused to leave his mind.
Someone close to him had betrayed him.
The question was no longer if.
It was who.
A soft knock interrupted his thoughts.
Marco stepped inside.
"I've doubled security."
Alessandro looked up.
"Around the estate?"
"And around Sophia and Emma."
Alessandro nodded.
"Good."
Marco hesitated.
"I don't think tonight is over."
Neither did Alessandro.
Across town, Sophia lay awake in the guest cottage the Duca family had prepared for her and Emma.
She couldn't stop thinking about Daniel.
For months, she'd believed he had died of natural causes.
Now she knew the truth.
He had been murdered.
Emma slept peacefully beside her, still clutching the old gray rabbit.
Sophia gently brushed a curl away from her daughter's forehead.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"I should have believed you."
At 2:17 a.m., one of the estate's surveillance monitors flickered.
Then another.
Then another.
In the security room, Officer Liam frowned.
"Marco?"
No answer.
He adjusted the feed.
Static.
Every outdoor camera went black at the same time.
His stomach tightened.
He reached for the emergency phone.
Too late.
The lights went out.
The entire estate was swallowed by darkness.
Emergency generators should have activated within five seconds.
They didn't.
Marco was already running down the hallway with a flashlight in one hand and his sidearm in the other.
"Power station!" he shouted into his radio.
Only static answered.
Someone had jammed the communications.
This wasn't an accident.
It was an attack.
Alessandro opened the hidden compartment in his desk.
Inside lay a pistol he hadn't touched in years.
He checked the magazine.
Loaded.
He slipped it into the back of his waistband and headed toward the guest cottage.
If the attackers wanted the evidence...
They would come for Sophia.
Or Emma.
Outside, three black SUVs rolled silently through the open service gate.
No alarms sounded.
The gate had been unlocked from the inside.
Six masked figures stepped out.
They moved with military precision.
No shouting.
No hesitation.
Each carried suppressed weapons.
One of them held a tablet displaying the estate's floor plan.
"Target One," he whispered.
"The child."
Emma's eyes opened before anyone reached the cottage.
She sat up suddenly.
Her little nose twitched.
Moments later, she shook her mother.
"Mommy."
Sophia blinked awake.
"What is it?"
Emma looked toward the window.
"There are strangers outside."
Sophia listened.
Nothing.
Only rain.
Then—
A faint crunch of footsteps on wet gravel.
Her heart stopped.
Someone was outside.
The back door exploded inward.
Wood splintered across the kitchen floor.
A masked man rushed inside.
Sophia grabbed Emma and ran toward the bedroom.
Another man appeared in the hallway.
She slammed the door and locked it.
The handle immediately began shaking.
"Open it!"
A deep voice.
Not asking.
Ordering.
Emma buried her face against her mother's shoulder.
Sophia looked around desperately.
No escape.
The bedroom window.
She shoved it open.
Two stories above the ground.
Too high to jump.
The bedroom door cracked beneath another powerful kick.
At that exact moment—
A gunshot echoed through the storm.
One of the attackers collapsed outside.
Marco.
He emerged from the darkness behind a stone fountain.
"Security!"
Another shot.
A second intruder fell.
The remaining men scattered, taking cover behind parked vehicles.
The peaceful estate became a battlefield.
Inside the mansion, Alessandro sprinted through the rain.
He reached the guest cottage just as the bedroom door gave way.
One masked man stepped through the broken frame.
His weapon aimed directly at Sophia.
Before he could fire—
Alessandro tackled him.
Both men crashed into the floor.
The pistol slid across the room.
The attacker threw a punch.
Alessandro answered with another.
Years may have passed since his last fight...
But survival had never left him.
The masked man reached for a knife.
Alessandro caught his wrist.
The blade stopped inches from his throat.
Then—
Bang!
Marco fired through the doorway.
The attacker collapsed instantly.
Silence.
Only the sound of rain remained.
Within minutes, the surviving intruders fled the estate.
Three escaped.
Three remained behind.
Dead.
Police arrived twenty minutes later.
The lead detective walked into the destroyed cottage and surveyed the scene.
Then he frowned.
"Where are the bodies?"
Marco stared at him.
"What?"
"The bodies."
"They're gone."
Everyone rushed outside.
The three attackers who had been shot moments earlier...
Had disappeared.
Only pools of rainwater mixed with blood remained on the driveway.
No bodies.
No weapons.
No fingerprints.
Nothing.
It was as if they had never existed.
As dawn broke over the estate, Alessandro stood silently beside the shattered front door.
Someone had poisoned his coffee.
Someone had murdered Daniel.
Now trained killers had come for a three-year-old child.
This was no longer about protecting himself.
It was about protecting the only witness who had unknowingly exposed a conspiracy.
Marco approached, holding something wrapped in an evidence bag.
"We found this."
Inside was a small silver pin that had fallen from one of the attackers during the fight.
Alessandro took one look at the symbol engraved on it—
A black raven with its wings spread.
His expression changed instantly.
Marco noticed.
"You've seen it before?"
Alessandro nodded slowly.
"Only once."
"Where?"
His voice became almost a whisper.
May you like
"Twenty-five years ago..."
"...the night my father was murdered."
