27. Obi
OBI
W e needed power.
Enough power to keep us safe. Enough to make us untouchable.
The Luccheses were the next step on my path to acquiring it.
It started with killing Guido Lucchese, the Head of the Lucchese Family.
His death served multiple purposes. First, it would be vengeance for the Lucchese’s action, or inaction, in the face of human trafficking.
We were positive that Lucchese was aware of it, at the very least. It was far more likely that he’d been taking part in the efforts right alongside Luciano Vero.
Orik Vokshi wouldn’t have run to him without good reason.
Even if it was indirect, their choices led to the harm of my woman, and that was worthy of a slow and painful death.
Second, absorbing the Lucchese Family into our own would not only eliminate them as a potential enemy, it would also exponentially increase our manpower. We could fold their businesses into ours, expand our reach across the city, and allow us to fight Max Volpe with even more force.
In one fell swoop, we could match Volpe’s power in numbers. He owned the Tommasos and half of the previous Veros. We owned the other half of the Veros, and with the Luccheses, we’d be on even footing.
We could jostle for complete control over the criminal families of New York.
The idea of a future where everyone I loved was finally safe fueled every step as we infiltrated the Lucchese Family compound.
It had taken days to organize this plan and put it in motion.
We’d kill Lucchese quickly, back to our assassination roots. Simultaneously, the Makarovs with the Russian Bratva, and our Italian forces with Giulio, surrounded prominent Lucchese locations. On our signal, they’d attack by surprise. They’d force the Lucchese men to fall in line at our feet—or die.
It would be the most coordinated attack on one of the Five Families in decades.
“Ciel, any movement?” I murmured into my comms.
Ciel ran point from his tech van, while Wynn waited with him. He’d set himself back by overexerting, and I wouldn’t clear him to join another mission until he had healed. He’d been angry with me, but it would have been foolish to let him hurt himself further.
Leona, Ryuji, Cas, and I infiltrated the estate. We’d already breached the perimeter and taken out the guards. Ryuji was currently picking the lock on the back door.
“Alarms are off,” Ciel confirmed. “No other movement around the property.”
Lucchese lived on an estate similar to the Veros. It was a sprawling compound designed to house all members of the family in one place for security. Lucchese had two unmarried sons who also lived on the property. Ciel confirmed that all three men were inside.
The lock clicked, and the back door popped open.
“Easy,” Ryu snickered as he stood, wrapping up his tools and tucking them away into one of the many pockets on his pants .
I entered first, clearing the room before allowing Ryuji and Caspian to enter with Leona.
As the four of us made our way slowly yet silently through the house, I was struck again by that feeling of rightness that I’d had the moment I first laid eyes on Leona and Caspian.
They fit within our unit seamlessly. Leona had been training hard, and still had skills to develop, but every one of her movements mirrored Wynn’s.
I saw flashes of Ryuji’s technique in the way she used her gun to check corners.
She had absorbed us like she was a sponge.
Despite Caspian’s previous injuries, he moved as if he’d trained with us for years.
He was our brother now, through and through.
I’d known all along that she and Caspian were our missing pieces. It felt more right now than ever.
“In here,” Caspian murmured once we cased the upper floors. He stood outside the primary bedroom. His head jerked toward a set of closed double doors.
I lifted a finger to my lips before reaching for the handle. The door opened silently, and we all slipped inside.
There, lying in his bed, asleep like a babe, lay a snoring Guido Lucchese.
A gun waited on the nightstand next to the bed, along with an open bottle of liquor and an antique lamp.
Ryuji picked up the bottle, sniffed it, then scowled and put it back.
Next, he tucked the gun into the back of his pants before crouching next to the bed to glimpse under Lucchese’s pillow.
He shook his head, indicating there were no more hidden weapons.
I waited at the foot of the bed with Leona while Caspian drew the curtains shut, blocking out the dim light of the moon. Then, Ryuji flicked on the lamp.
We waited for Lucchese to startle or move, but he snored on unbothered.
Ryuji rolled his eyes, making Leona smirk. She grabbed the bedsheets and yanked them down, but Lucchese only stirred momentarily and rolled over .
“For fuck’s sake,” Ryuji whispered while he drew a knife. “Let’s just kill him.”
I held up a hand. We could easily kill him, but he could give us more information about the Albanians first. We did not know where Vokshi was. Ciel was positive he would have caught him on cameras exiting the city, which led us to believe he may still be hiding within Lucchese territory.
I pressed the barrel of my gun to Lucchese’s forehead. He jerked awake, eyes bleary, while he blinked. It took a few moments before realization dawned on his face that four people stood around his bed, glaring and heavily armed.
“What the fuck?” he sputtered, attempting to sit up only to be shoved downward by my gun.
“Stay still, or I’ll paint your bed with red,” I said, voice low. He froze, hands clutching his silk pajamas like an old woman clutching her pearls.
Sickening.
Leona sat down on the bed. His eyes widened as he took in the way she flipped a knife end over end, just like Ryu.
“Leona Vero?” he asked while rubbing his eyes.
“Surprised?”
He frowned, face turning indignant. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here, little girl? Bursting into my home. I am a fucking Don ? —”
I shot his kneecap, and the sound of his guttural scream tore through the air. With my suppressor on, the sound was muffled, but it still reverberated through the house. There was no way Lucchese’s sons didn’t hear both sounds.
“Speak to her with respect,” I said, deadly cold. I turned to Ryu and Caspian. “Will you please secure Lucchese’s sons so we are not interrupted?”
“They’re both awake,” Ciel added, watching the cameras from the van. “Intercept them in the hallway. ”
They both nodded and left the room while Guido thrashed on the bed, face red with pain.
“Be quiet,” I commanded.
“What do you want?” he gasped. “Money?”
Leona looked down at him. “Orik Vokshi.”
Lucchese’s face paled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The sons are secured,” Caspian said in our ears. “We’ll hold them out here until you’re ready.”
“Copy,” I said briefly.
Leona turned so Lucchese could get a full glimpse of the scar running down her face. “I think you do, Guido. I think you knew a lot about what my father was doing. I think Orik Vokshi knew that, too.”
She raised her knife to his throat.
“Wait, wait, wait—” he stuttered, sweat dripping down his forehead. Blood pooled beneath his leg. “I’ll make a deal.”
Leona raised an eyebrow at me. “What kind of deal?”
“I’ll tell you where we took him. I’ll tell you about the safe houses I know about, but let me and my sons live.”
“Obi, what do you think?”
“Speak.”
He rattled off two cross-streets just at the edge of his territory. “He wanted us to drop him there. He stood on the corner of the street until my men left. I don’t know where he went after that.”
In my ear, Ciel spoke. “Looking up the feeds in that area now.”
“Why didn’t you take him back to Albanian territory?” I asked.
He grimaced in pain, his heavy body wedged up onto his elbows. “He didn’t want it. He paid us to drop him off, and that’s it.”
“And you took the money even though you knew he was running,” Leona said, frowning. “Did he tell you who he was running from? ”
“He said Volpe. Volpe was trying to kill him.”
My grip on my gun tightened. Max’s men had been there that night at the marina, but we were there first.
“He was running from the Shadows, you imbecile,” Leona hissed. “Me and my men.”
Guido took a good look at me. His eyes went wide. “No, no, no?—”
“What about the safe houses?” I asked, interrupting his blubbering. “What do you know about their operations?”
He listed two more addresses in Trenton, New Jersey. “Those are the two places I’ve heard about. I know nothing else.”
“Hmm,” Leona said, tilting her head to the side. “I’m surprised you can’t tell us more.”
“I wasn’t involved like your father was,” he continued. “I swear. I only took his payments to use our streets periodically.”
“He paid you to turn your head, but you knew what he was doing.”
“We didn’t approve! We tried to talk him out of it.”
Leona barked a laugh. “Clearly, you thought the money was more important.”
Lucchese visibly gulped. “I’ll stop. From this moment forward, no more Albanians in Lucchese territory. I’ll tell my men immediately.”
She shook her head. “That’s not good enough, Guido.”
“Then what do you want?” His voice shook with fear before he cleared his throat. “You want the money? I’ll pay it back.”
“Nope. The Dons are done. New York belongs to us.”
The pained look on his face morphed into rage. “You fucking bitch! You have no idea what you’re dealing with?—”
She pressed the edge of her knife hard enough into his neck to draw blood. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
Ciel spoke into our comms, voice laced with frustration. “There are no cameras on those street corners where they dropped Vokshi. It’s a total dead zone. ”
Vokshi must have known there were no cameras there, and that’s why he asked to be dropped off on those street corners. Where did he go from there? How did he evade us? We’d need to install our own surveillance, just in case the Albanians came back.
Leona sighed, giving me a disappointed look before turning back to Lucchese. Her knife pressed harder against his neck. “Any other information you want to give us, Guido?”
He shook his head. “That’s all I know. I swear.”
She withdrew her blade, nodding to me as she stood from the bed. “We’re done.”
“This is the night you lose your Family, Lucchese,” I said, training my gun on him.
“We made a deal! I gave you what you wanted! You’re supposed to let us live!”
Letting him live was never part of the plan.
“I do not care.” I pulled my trigger, spraying his brain matter across his pillow and onto the carved wooden headboard. His mouth hung open in a grotesque gape.
“Bring in the sons,” I said. Shortly after, Ryuji and Caspian dragged the two young men into the room. When they saw the state of their father, they began shouting and screaming, yanking against Caspian and Ryuji.
They dropped the men at Leona and my feet. Innocent or not, we couldn’t leave them alive. We needed complete control over this Family.
Two gunshots later, one from me and one from Leona, the Lucchese family line was finished.
Caspian pulled out his phone and recorded a video showing the dead bodies, and then of me and Leona standing side by side.
“The Luccheses are dead,” I said into the recording. “This Family belongs to the Shadows now.”
“There will be no more trafficking,” Leona added. “Anyone caught aiding the Albanians or turning their heads the other way will meet death. We’re coming for them next. Fall in line, or fall at our feet. The choice is yours.”
Caspian ended the recording and sent it to each of our strike teams, along with the order to close in and secure their locations.
One by one, the notifications rolled in. There were some casualties from men unwilling to adjust their loyalties, but most had committed to our syndicate.
The plan was a sweeping success. The tide was turning in our favor.
Rossi had revealed himself as a neutral non-issue—at least for now. The Sandrini Family were the only Italian Family left. Between us or Volpe, they wouldn’t survive long. We had to be the ones who took their power for our own.
I pressed a kiss to Leona’s forehead while we wrapped up at the Lucchese estate. Tonight had put us in a much better position. We were one step closer to ending the Camorra once and for all.