LOTTERY OF VENGEANCE

Chapter Four – Baptism of Fire

Bullets ripped through velvet and glass. Screams drowned out the jazz as chaos swallowed The Gilded Serpent.

Jackson’s ears rang with the crack of gunfire, but his mind was razor sharp. He didn’t panic. He didn’t run. He moved.

“Down!” he barked, shoving a panicked guest behind the bar just as a spray of bullets tore through the chandelier above. Crystal rained down, cutting skin, glinting red in the strobe of gunfire.

Across the room, Victor Moretti roared orders, dragging his wife Elena beneath the overturned booth. His lieutenants drew pistols, returning fire with shaky aim. But the attackers, ten men in black masks, armed with rifles, moved with military precision.

They weren’t here to rob. They were here to kill. Jackson slid behind a column, his pulse steady despite the storm. He scanned the chaos. Patterns. Always patterns. The gunmen weren’t shooting at random. They were aiming at Victor.

So someone wants the king dead. A bottle shattered inches from his head. Jackson ducked, rolling across the floor, scooping a pistol from a fallen guard’s hand.

His fingers curled around the grip like it belonged there. He inhaled once, then rose, two shots, clean and precise. The nearest gunman dropped. Another spun, clutching his leg

Jackson’s mask of “wealthy investor” cracked at the edges, but he didn’t care. Survival came first.

“Who the hell is this guy?!” Carlo shouted from behind cover, eyes wide as Jackson cut down another attacker with a shot so clean it looked rehearsed.

Victor’s gaze flicked toward him, surprise flashing in his eyes. Mr. Black wasn’t supposed to fight like a soldier. Mr. Black wasn’t supposed to be this calm in the face of death.

But Victor didn’t have time to question. Another hail of bullets forced him down. Jackson advanced through the smoke and screams, every movement calculated.

He grabbed a champagne bucket, hurled it across the room to distract one gunman, then fired into his exposed side. He flipped a table, using it as cover, his mind working faster than his body could follow.

Three attackers down. Seven left, Then he saw her. Elena. Cowering beneath the booth, her hands over her head, eyes wide with terror. A masked man had broken from the pack, charging straight toward her with a knife drawn. “NO!”

Jackson didn’t think. He ran. He slid across the blood-slick floor, colliding with the man just as the blade arced downward. The knife clattered across the tiles. The gunman snarled, fists slamming into Jackson’s ribs.

Pain flared, but Jackson ignored it. He grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted hard until bones snapped, then drove his head into the marble with a crack that silenced his scream forever.

Breathless, Jackson turned. Elena’s eyes locked onto his. For the briefest moment, she saw him, not the mask, not the suit, but the raw, burning fury in his soul. And she knew. This man was dangerous.

The firefight raged on. Victor’s men were dwindling, the floor littered with bodies. Jackson ducked behind cover, reloading the stolen pistol.

His mind screamed: If you show too much, they’ll know you’re not who you claim to be. But then he heard it, The click of a rifle behind him. Jackson spun too late. A masked gunman had flanked him, barrel aimed square at his chest. “Got you now, rich boy,” the man sneered.

Time slowed. Jackson’s finger tightened on the trigger, but he knew, he wasn’t fast enough this time.

Then—BANG.

The gunman’s head snapped back, crimson spraying the wall. He crumpled to the ground, lifeless. Jackson blinked. Elena Moretti stood there, her delicate hands wrapped around the smoking pistol she had stolen from her husband’s bodyguard.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her face pale, but her grip steady. “I… I couldn’t just watch,” she whispered.

Their eyes locked again, and something shifted between them. But there was no time. The remaining attackers regrouped, retreating toward the exit. Victor roared, firing wildly after them.

“They think they can hit ME?!” he bellowed. “Carlo! After them! Don’t let those bastards breathe!”

Half his men scrambled to obey, chasing the fleeing gunmen into the street. The club fell into wreckage, shattered glass, overturned tables, bodies groaning in pain.

Jackson stood in the center, blood on his hands, smoke curling from his pistol. Victor stormed toward him, eyes blazing. “You,” he growled. “Who the hell are you really?”

Jackson’s mind raced. He couldn’t reveal himself. Not yet. So he smiled faintly, slipping the pistol into his jacket. “I told you, Victor. I’m a man who belongs.”

Victor studied him, chest heaving, before finally grinning through the blood on his teeth. He clapped Jackson hard on the shoulder. “You saved my life tonight. That makes you family.”

Jackson forced himself to nod. “Then I’ll wear that title with pride.”

Victor turned away, barking orders to his men. But Elena’s gaze lingered. She didn’t smile. She didn’t cheer. She only stared at Jackson, her eyes filled with questions she dared not ask.

And Jackson, for the first time since his family’s death, felt the weight of something new pressing against his chest. Not guilt, Not grief. Something far more dangerous.

Victor welcomes Jackson into his inner circle after the bloody ambush, but Elena now knows Jackson isn’t what he pretends to be. Their dangerous connection has been born in gunfire.