“I’m not,” Rosalie says simply.
Suddenly, as I hear the door open, there’s a sinking feeling in the bit of my stomach.
“I think it is a package,” Nikolas says, and everything happens in slow motion. “Should I check it f?—”
I turn around and head directly for the door. My goal is not the door but the young man standing with the door halfway open, looking down at a small brown box with several labels on it.
“Shut the door,” I demand.
“What?” he asks, like he hasn’t processed what I’m saying.
There’s not enough time to repeat myself.
In a split second, I tackle Nikolas to the ground and shield him underneath my body. At the same time that we hit the ground, I kick the door closed, but it doesn’t close all the way. It’s stuck.
I hold the door closed with my feet, shoving down with my thighs and knees.
Nikolas underneath me has only the time for a single gasp before an explosion rattles the front of the estate and bursts through the door in a crack just big enough to send debris flying across my arms and the floor.
It’s not a huge explosion, a small and fairly contained one, but it lights the wreath on the door on fire, and chars the plant beside the inside of the door, along with the sleeve of my suit jacket.
I can feel my skin tingling along my left hand, but I ignore it.
“Oh my God!” Patricia’s voice is behind me.
“Everyone stay back! Call your guards to the front!” I demand Eivor. “Get your bombs expert in.”
“I’m calling him now,” Eivor tells me. I think he’s standing above me, but my head is a bit rattled.
After another two seconds, when another explosion hasn’t gone off, I slowly move up and off the poor kid underneath me.
“Are you alright?” I ask him.
He looks at me with wide eyes. “Y-Yes, I think so.”
“What was that? A bomb?” he asks me.
I shove off the tile floor and reach to help him up. “Yes. Go, it’s not safe to remain here. Go tell the staff to stay away from the doors and windows until this is cleared.”
He pushes up from the floor, and then disappears down the hallway quickly.
Suddenly, Rosalie is shuffling into the room, no longer in her wedding gown but in a thin slip.
“Who did this?” she asks. “Who would do this?”
I look toward her. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”
5
Chapter Five
Alessio
The second I find out that the front porch of the Fiorelli estate has been blown up, I’m in my car headed over there. Despite Carmine telling me to not get involved. If he’s involved, I’m involved. That’s all there is to it.
Granted, I wasn’t told until an hour after it happened, so by the time I’m pulling into the driveway, Carmine and Soren have already been here just as long. The porch has been swept up of any debris and the package that exploded is nowhere to be found. There are several other dark cars pulled up into the driveway, and the door is cracked open when I get to the top of the porch under the car port.
“Is anyone going to fill me in on the details of how this happened?” I ask as I shove the door open the rest of the way. I come face to face with several men who are scraping up bits and pieces of char from the door and floor beside it.
