Chapter 31 Noemi
Noemi
The sheets are cold on his side of the bed.
He left while I was sleeping, sparing us a drawn-out goodbye.
I sit up, pulling his discarded black dress shirt over my bare shoulders. My muscles ache, a delicious, lingering soreness from the hours we spent tangled together, but my mind is razor-sharp. Today is the day the streets run red. Today, my husband walks into a meat grinder.
I dress quickly. Black trousers, a tight black turtleneck, sensible boots. I grab the matte black Glock 19 he gave me, checking the chamber with a satisfying clack, and tuck it into the waistband at the small of my back.
The West Wing study has been transformed into a nerve center. Three massive monitors dominate the mahogany desk, displaying GPS trackers attached to Orlando’s boats and Dante’s decoy convoy. Matteo left two tech-savvy soldiers to monitor the encrypted radio frequencies.
I walk in, pouring myself a cup of black coffee from the pot in the corner.
"Status," I demand, taking Cassio's leather chair.
"The decoy convoy is two miles from Pier Seven, Signora," the younger guard, Luca, reports.
"They are making a lot of noise. Revving engines, keeping their headlights blaring.
The Bratva are taking the bait. We have intercepted Russian chatter.
Volkov is pulling his perimeter guards to fortify the main avenue. "
"And the boats?" I ask, my heart kicking against my ribs.
"Holding position in the inlet, exactly as you advised," Luca says, pointing to three blinking green dots on the screen. "They breach Holding Bay Four in twelve minutes."
I stare at the green dots. One of them is Cassio.
He is out there on the freezing water, bleeding through his stitches, preparing to storm a fortified dock.
My stomach twists into a painful knot, but I force myself to breathe steadily.
I cannot fall apart. If the men see me shake, they will lose faith. I am the Lady of this house.
The radio crackles. Dante’s voice fills the room, distorted by static and adrenaline. "Contact! Contact! Heavy resistance at the main gate! Engaging the enemy!"
The sound of automatic gunfire bursts through the speaker. I grip the edge of the desk so tightly my knuckles turn white.
"Hold them there, Dante," I whisper to the empty room. "Keep their eyes on you."
The clock ticks down. 2:55 AM. 2:57 AM.
"Shift change at the harbor," I announce, my voice echoing in the tense silence of the study. "Cameras are panning east."
"Boats are moving," Luca confirms, the green dots surging forward on the digital map. "They are in the bay. Breach in three... two... one."
We wait. The radio channels dedicated to the strike team are completely quiet, maintaining stealth until the very last second.
Then, the comms explode.
It isn't Dante. It isn't Cassio.
It's the estate's internal security frequency.
"Breach at the south gate!" a frantic voice yells. "A single vehicle rammed the service entrance. We have an intruder on the grounds!"
I stand up, my chair scraping harshly against the hardwood. "Who the fuck is hitting the estate right now? Volkov committed his men to the port."
"I don't know, Signora," Luca says, his fingers flying across his keyboard to bring up the external cameras. Most of them are still damaged from the last raid, displaying nothing but static. "It looks like one man. He slipped past the outer wall."
Footsteps echo in the hallway outside the study. Heavy, hurried steps.
"Lock the door," I order the two guards.
Before Luca can even reach for his weapon, the heavy oak doors burst open.
Dario Lombardi stands in the threshold.
He looks like a hunted animal. His sandy blond hair is plastered to his forehead with freezing rain, his expensive suit ruined and torn at the knee. He is holding a silver pistol, his hand shaking violently as he points it between Luca and the other guard.
"Drop the weapons," Dario pants, his eyes are wide and manic. "Drop them right now, or I blow her head off." He shifts his aim directly at my chest.
The guards hesitate, looking at me for the call.
"Do it," I say, my voice completely devoid of panic. I keep my hands resting visibly on the mahogany desk.
Luca and the other guard slowly lower their rifles to the floor, kicking them away.
"Get out," Dario barks at them, waving the gun toward the corridor. "Out! If anyone follows me, I shoot her."
The guards back out of the room slowly, leaving me entirely alone with the man who sold my husband to the Russians.
Dario slams the doors shut behind them and locks the deadbolt. He turns to me, his chest heaving, a desperate, hysterical smile twisting his handsome face.
"Noemi," he gasps, leaning back against the wood. "Thank God you're here. We have to leave. Right now."
I don't move. I study him. The boy I used to watch from across the ballroom, the boy who used to make my cheeks flush with a single glance. I used to think he looked like a prince out of a fairy tale, a golden escape from the miserable, suffocating reality of the Genovese household.
"Where exactly are we going, Dario?" I ask, my tone conversational, though my pulse is hammering a vicious beat.
"Anywhere," he insists, taking a step toward the desk.
His gun lowers slightly; his desperation is overriding his logic.
"My father threw me to the wolves. Cassio knows about the routing numbers.
The Commission is going to put a hit out on me by morning.
But if I have you... If I take you with me, Cassio will negotiate.
We can trade you for my life, and then you'll be free. "
He actually believes it. He believes I am still the pathetic, trapped spinster praying for a knight in shining armor to drag her out of the tower.
"You want to use me as a hostage," I state, piecing together his pathetic, cowardly plan.
"I want to save you!" he argues, his voice cracking. He stops a few feet from the desk, reaching his free hand out toward me. "He is a monster, Noemi. He locks you in this house. He uses you as a pawn. I can give you a normal life. Just come with me."
A bitter, hollow laugh escapes my throat.
I look at his outstretched hand. I remember the girl I used to be.
The quiet, overlooked older sister, wearing modest dresses, standing in the shadows while my father paraded Lucia in front of the eligible bachelors.
I remember wishing Dario would ask me to dance.
I remember wishing someone, anyone, would look at me and see something worth keeping.
That girl is dead.
She died the night she ripped her wedding dress. She died when she packed a bullet hole with combat gauze, her hands stained to the elbows in the blood of the man who finally saw her worth.
"You don't want to save me, Dario," I say, pushing away from the desk. I stand tall, my spine straight, exuding the authority of the empire I am fighting to protect. "You just want to save your own miserable skin."
Dario flinches, his hand dropping. "Noemi, please. You don't understand—"
"I understand everything," I interrupt, stepping around the desk. "You sold Cassio's convoy route to Volkov. You set the ambush. You knew the bullets were coming, and you tried to pull me off the terrace so you could play the hero while my husband bled to death."
"He forced you to marry him!" Dario yells, raising the pistol again, his hands shaking so badly I am genuinely worried the gun might go off by accident. "I was doing you a favor!"
"He gave me a crown," I correct him.
I reach behind my back. My fingers wrap securely around the grip of the Glock 19 tucked into my waistband.
"Put the gun down, Dario," I warn him, my voice dropping to a dangerous, freezing pitch.
"No! You're coming with me!" He takes an aggressive step forward, his finger tightening on the trigger.
I don't hesitate. I don't flinch. I draw the weapon Cassio gave me with a fluid, practiced motion, bringing it up to eye level in a fraction of a second.
I don't give him time to react. I don't give him time to realize the spinster he came to kidnap is actually the executioner he should have been running from.
I pull the trigger.
The gunshot is deafening in the enclosed space of the study.
The hollow-point round catches Dario perfectly in the center of his chest. The impact lifts him off his feet, throwing him backward. He crashes into the heavy oak doors, sliding down the polished wood, leaving a thick smear of crimson in his wake.
His silver pistol clatters harmlessly onto the floorboards.
I stand completely still, the Glock still raised, a thin wisp of smoke curling from the barrel. My ears are ringing. The scent of sulfur burns the back of my throat.
Dario is gasping, his hands clutching the gaping hole in his ruined suit jacket. Blood bubbles past his lips. He stares up at me, his eyes wide with shock and a profound, agonizing betrayal.
"You..." he chokes out, his chest heaving irregularly.
I walk over to him, my boots clicking rhythmically against the floor. I look down at the boy who thought I needed saving. I look at the traitor who tried to put my husband in the ground.
I feel absolutely no remorse.
"I pass judgment on those who betray my family," I tell him, my voice completely devoid of sympathy.
I aim the gun at his head.
I don't blink as I squeeze the trigger a second time.
The body slumps entirely. The room goes quiet, save for the hum of the computer monitors and the erratic pounding of my own heart.
I lower the gun. I take a deep breath, the tension leaving my shoulders. The girl who used to hide in the shadows of the Genovese estate is gone forever, buried alongside the childhood crush bleeding out on my floor.
I turn my back on the corpse and walk over to the mahogany desk. I pick up the radio receiver and press the button to connect to the internal security channel.
"Luca," I say smoothly. "Come back to the study and clean up this mess. The rat is dead."
I set the radio down, looking up at the glowing green dots on the monitor. They are deep inside Holding Bay Four now. The trap has been sprung.
I did my part, Cassio, I think, touching the cold steel of the gun against my thigh. Now finish yours, and come home to me.