Chapter 7: The Price of Revenge
Enzo hit the floor.
For one terrible second, Harper heard nothing.
Not the sirens.
Not the shouting.
Not the armed men fleeing through the side exits.
Only the sound of Enzo struggling to breathe.
She dropped beside him.
“Enzo.”
Blood spread across his white shirt.
His hand found hers.
“Stay down.”
Preston advanced with the gun.
“You ruin everything you touch,” he told Harper. “Your mother. Nathan. Now him.”
Harper placed herself between Preston and Enzo.
Her father laughed.
“You think he loves you?”
“No.”
The answer surprised them both.
Harper slowly rose.
“But he saw what you did to me and stopped blaming me for it.”
Her voice sharpened.
“That makes him more of a husband than you were ever a father.”
Preston raised the gun.
Harper did not flinch.
The boardroom doors exploded inward.
Federal agents entered from both sides, shouting commands.
Preston grabbed Harper around the throat and pressed the gun to her head.
“Back away!”
Agents froze.
Enzo forced himself onto one knee.
The bullet had struck the protective vest beneath his shirt, but the impact had cracked at least one rib.
Preston dragged Harper toward the emergency stairwell.
“You’re coming with me.”
Harper’s face changed.
She was no longer the trembling bride on the bedroom floor.
She drove her heel down onto Preston’s foot, turned sharply, and slammed her elbow into his throat.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Enzo crossed the distance and struck Preston so hard the older man crashed onto the conference table.
Preston reached for the fallen weapon.
Harper picked it up first.
Her father stared down the barrel.
“Harper,” he said softly. “You’re my daughter.”
“No.”
Her hands trembled.
“I was your prisoner.”
“Give me the gun.”
“You always said I was weak.”
“You are.”
Harper’s finger tightened.
Enzo approached slowly.
“You don’t have to become him.”
Preston smiled when he heard that.
“Yes, Harper. Listen to your husband.”
Enzo stood beside her.
“Put the gun down because you choose to. Not because either of us told you.”
Harper looked at Preston.
She remembered the locked rooms.
The belts.
Her mother crying behind closed doors.
Nathan promising he would help.
The wedding aisle.
The torn lace.
Then she lowered the weapon.
Preston laughed in relief.
“Still weak.”
Harper stepped back as federal agents seized him.
“No,” she said. “You’ll wake up every day knowing I survived you.”
They pulled Preston away in handcuffs.
As he passed Enzo, he smiled bitterly.
“You think this ends with me? Your empire is built on bodies.”
Enzo looked toward Harper.
For the first time, he understood the truth.
Revenge had brought her into his house.
But revenge could never build a life worth keeping.
Weeks later, Preston and Vittorio were indicted on charges including murder, conspiracy, bribery, racketeering, and financial fraud.
The evidence also exposed several DeLuca businesses.
Enzo’s advisers demanded retaliation.
Instead, he closed the illegal operations one by one.
Some men left.
Others threatened war.
Then a bomb exploded beneath Enzo’s car outside the courthouse.
May you like
Harper watched the fire rise into the winter sky.
Enzo had been standing beside the driver’s door.
