Deadly Nightshade

Chapter 2: The Plan

The blast came from the lobby and all of the boys look ready to protect me. "Lea, we have to get you out of here." says Max taking my hand and leading me out of the meeting room along with everyone.

"I'm not leaving my dad here, we all have to get out of this building now." I say, I stopped walking to think of a way out since going through the lobby is not an option anymore. Since I was a child I have been training for moments like this, where there is chaos and no way out, I was trained to remain calm and collected because if you panic or hesitate in situations like this something can go wrong in seconds.

"We have to get out through the back of the buil-" I tried to say but Damiano beats me to it, "The back of the building is blocked," he says, "But it is a good thing that we have a plan B for this sort of situations." he smirks. And I know that smirk, is the one that makes you shiver through your spine, the one that says 'you think you have us trapped, but you are just playing our game while we control it behind your back' type of smirk.

"Please, tell me you are not making us go in there." I whined.

"Yes, I am." Damiano smirks at me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, lets get ready to escape from this building." says my dad as he leads us to his office.

When I mentioned that we are a business family in the public eye, I meant that, but I also mentioned that some part of our business might not be legal and our plan B might explain why.

As we enter our dad's office he puts his handprint on one of the doors that is hidden behind a shelf. Once that door is unlocked it reveals a room full of weapons and I see the boys' eyes shine just by the sight of them. Each one of us enter the room to grab a weapon along with a bulletproof vest since we are definitely going to need one.

As for our bodyguards, they are outside the door, they have been keeping watch of the elevator doors and the reception of the 8th floor in case a foreigner decides to get through those doors.

Max handed me a gun, "Don't shoot yourself by accident." he smirks, I gasp and nudged him lightly "You wish you had my aiming skills." I say proudly.

"She is pretty good with a gun Maximilian, if I were you I'll be careful around her." Damiano smiles at me like a proud older brother, after all, everything I've learned is because of him. "That's because I was trained by the best." I looked at him fondly.

We meet up with our bodyguards and Aria at the reception of the floor, "Everyone, we have 15 minutes to get out of this building alive," my dad inform us, "And remember my daughter is your top priority, so guard her with your life." he instructs.

"Yes, sir!" all of them answered.

Now our plan B is simple, we go through a tunnel, we walk for a little bit and at the end of the tunnel our getaway cars will be there to pick us up.

Easy, right?

Well, here's the catch, in order for us to reach the tunnel we have to get down to the 2nd floor, a simple task, but since the lobby is where all hell broke loose, the second floor will not be different.

"Let's take the stairs." I say heading towards the stairs, "You know the stairs are dangerous, right? There can be people waiting to kill us." Luca comments, I stop walking and turn to him, "I know the risk, but the elevator will be worst, if they see us coming down from the 8th floor to the 2nd floor, we will be giving away our location. If we take the stairs we will have the element of surprise to our advantage." I explain to him.

"That's my smart girl," my dad compliments me, "Damiano, lead the way." my dad orders.

All of us make our way down the stairs as quietly as possible, and as we near the 4th floor we start hearing some noises. We all prepare our guns in front of us, never letting our guard down.

"Lea," Max gets close to me from behind and whispers in my ear, "Get behind me." and as soon as I do that, the first bullet comes flying our way.

I take a deep breath and start emptying my charger along with the guys. The only difference between them and I, is that they shoot to kill, I shoot to injure. I cannot bring myself to kill someone, not yet at least.

It is safe to say that we made it to the 2nd floor without a single scratch.

But then when Damiano opens the door of the floor a bullet almost hits him and he closes the door immediately. "I see Morozov's people in there" he puts his ear on the door, "It is definitely them, they are giving orders in Russian" he sighs.

"There is no way that we can get pass them without anyone getting hurt, those bastards are brutal" Niccolo whispers

"I can tell, they did just blow up our lobby after all," I whisper back, "We need to distract them so it can buys us some time." as I said that I saw that my dad was smiling proudly at me "You are going to be a great leader someday." he says and I blush.

"Luca, did you bring the smoke grenade?" Damiano asks.

Luca roams in his vest and shows him the several ones that he brought, "Show time" he smirks.

"Luca, Maximilian and Niccolo, you guys are with me, we will cover the rest of you. We have 60 seconds to run to the meeting room, make each second count and run as fast as you guys can, we will go at my signal." Damiano instructs and we all nod our head in approval.

"Cover your nose and try to hold your breath as much as you guys can, the smoke can be at our disadvantage if we inhale it too much." I warned them and they prepare themselves.

Damiano and Luca opened the door quietly and throw several smoke grenades. "Go, go!" Damiano says and we all run as fast as we can to the meeting room.

60 seconds is a short time, but it slows down when you are in the middle of smoke and bullets flying trying to pierce through you. As all of us make it safely to the meeting room and my dad opens another secret door so we can go into the tunnel, Francesco and I, along with a few of our bodyguards start firing to cover Damiano, Luca, Maximilian and Niccolo so they can get inside the meeting room.

And just when everything was going perfect with our escape plan, I see a bullet get through my best friend and I stopped breathing for a moment.

"Max!" I shout and I hear him hiss in pain.

There goes our perfect plan...