16. Mario
16
MARIO
W ell, fuck.
I should have known Calabrese would pull this shit, especially after those texts he sent Elena. The memory of his threats still makes my blood boil. But I’ve got my own problems burning a hole in my pocket—Dante’s been blowing up my phone all morning:
O’Connor’s losing his shit . Says he’ll put you down like the traitor you are.
Boss, this isn’t like you.
What the fuck is going on?
He’s calling in markers. The Irish are mobilizing.
Even Siobhan had to get her dig in: Running after a pregnant girl? How the mighty have fallen .
But I’d managed to forget all about O’Connor’s threats the moment that baby appeared on screen. Her heartbeat filled the room like music, and something in my chest had seized up, grown two sizes too big. That tiny profile, those butterfly-wing hands—fuck, is this what Matteo felt when he first saw Bianca? When he decided to claim another man’s child as his own?
The doctor had printed those pictures and Elena tucked them away in her clutch. Every fiber of my being wanted to snatch one, to keep that image of perfection close.
But I have Giuseppe’s lessons branded into my bones—never show weakness, never reveal what matters to you. I couldn’t let Elena see how much that tiny life affected me.
But somehow she knew. Fucking knew exactly what I was thinking when she slipped that photo into my breast pocket, her hand pressed against my heart like she could feel every crack in my carefully constructed walls. Fucking Elena.
But I have bigger problems right now. Like how the fuck Anthony Calabrese knew Elena would be at this supposedly discreet clinic. The rent-a-cop who’d been pretending to read The Wall Street Journal springs to his feet, hand moving to his concealed weapon. I roll my eyes.
This amateur would piss himself if he actually had to face Calabrese’s men.
I text my security team while retrieving my arsenal—Glock 19 from my shoulder holster, Sig Sauer from my ankle, ceramic blade from beneath my tie. Each weapon a comfort, each placement learned at Giuseppe’s knee. My phone lights up with intel:
Four men at south entrance.
Two in stairwell B.
Three covering parking garage.
Sniper on roof of building across street —northeast corner.
Two more incoming from west side.
My mind’s already mapping our next steps. The clinic’s glass walls are both advantage and liability—clear sight lines, but no cover. We’ll need a distraction, something to draw the sniper’s attention.
“Ladies,” I call to the reception staff, keeping my voice gentle. No need to terrify them more than necessary. “You might want to find somewhere safe to wait this out.”
They scatter, heels clicking against marble as they flee. Smart girls.
I turn back to Elena, expecting fear, maybe panic. Instead, she watches with cool calculation, those blue eyes taking in every detail. She’s not the same woman who trembled when Johnny Calabrese held her hostage. That Elena would have frozen.
This one’s probably already counting exits and cataloging weapons.
“Here’s how this plays,” I explain, checking my magazine. “My team’s setting up a kill box in the parking garage. We’ll use the service elevator—they’ll be watching the main ones. Car’s waiting in the underground tunnel that connects to the building next door.”
“And the sniper?” she asks.
Fuck, I love that she caught that detail. “He’s about to have a very bad day. But it’s going to get messy. People will die.” I meet her eyes. “Once we leave here together, there’s no going back. Anthony will know you’re with me. Word will reach Matteo within hours.”
She hesitates, one hand drifting to her stomach. For a moment, I think she’ll choose the safer path—return to Anthony, play the dutiful mistress. But then her lips curve into that smile that drives me crazy.
“Please,” she scoffs. “Like I didn’t burn that bridge the moment I let you fuck me in Anthony’s study.”
My heart definitely doesn’t skip at her casual claim of choosing me. My phone buzzes: In position. Awaiting signal.
“Ready?” I ask, offering her my spare Glock.
Those blue eyes meet mine, sharp as blades. “Ready.”
I give the signal and all hell breaks loose.
My security team creates the perfect distraction—an explosion in the east wing that has Calabrese’s men spinning toward the noise. The sniper’s attention diverts just long enough for my counter-sniper to take him out. Clean shot, straight through the scope. Glass shatters somewhere in the distance.
“Move,” I order, keeping Elena close as we head for the service elevator. Two of Calabrese’s men appear at the end of the hall—both drop before they can raise their weapons, my shots perfect between their eyes. The muscle memory Giuseppe beat into me serving its purpose.
Elena doesn’t flinch at the blood spray. She flows through the space beside me, that Glock held with surprising steadiness in her perfectly manicured hands. When another of Anthony’s men bursts through a side door, she puts two in his chest without hesitation.
The blood splatter across her face doesn’t even make her blink.
“Behind!” she calls, and I spin, taking out the man trying to flank us. But something catches my attention—he was aiming for my legs, not center mass. The same with the others.
They’re shooting to disable, not kill.
We reach the service elevator just as Dante’s voice crackles through my earpiece. “Boss, they’re trying to funnel you toward the garage.”
The pieces click together as we descend. I watch two more of Anthony’s men attempt to grab Elena rather than shoot her. They’re not here to kill us—they’re here to separate us. To take her.
Rage pours through me, hot and familiar. Nobody is taking what’s mine.
The elevator opens to chaos. My men have created the kill box as planned, but Calabrese’s team is more focused on reaching Elena than engaging them. One manages to get close enough to grab her arm—I remove his hand at the wrist with my ceramic blade.
“Change of plans,” I growl into my comm. “They’re after her. Formation Echo.”
My team shifts instantly, creating a tighter circle around Elena as we move toward the tunnel. She proves herself again, shooting a man trying to breach our perimeter. But they keep coming, more focused on grabbing her than stopping me.
“Mario!” Her warning comes just as someone manages to get an arm around her waist. I don’t even think—my knife finds his throat before he can pull her away. The sight of another man’s hands on her makes something feral rise in my chest.
We’re almost to the tunnel when I hear it—the distinctive three-tone radio signal that’s been Matteo’s security signature since we were kids. I’d know that sound anywhere—used to use it myself.
Fucking Antonio must have called him. That fucking man has eyes everywhere.
Fucking perfect.
“Run,” I tell Elena, already formulating my next move. “Car’s through the tunnel, second left. Go!”
Her blue eyes widen in shock. “I’m not leaving you?—”
“Trust me,” I growl, pushing her toward one of my men. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She hesitates for just a moment before nodding. I watch her disappear into the tunnel as I turn to face the approaching storm. Let them try to take her. I’ve spent a lifetime being the DeLuca son everyone underestimated.
Time to remind them why that was a mistake.
The moment Elena disappears into the tunnel, I let the mask slip. The careful control, the precision—all of it falls away. What emerges is the creature Giuseppe crafted through years of basement “lessons” and brutal punishments.
The beast that caught Seamus O’Connor’s eye, that held a gun to Bianca’s head and felt nothing.
Blood sings in my veins as I move. Two Calabrese men go down before they can blink, their necks snapped with mechanical efficiency. A third loses his eyes to my blade. I don’t bother with clean kills anymore—let them suffer. Let them carry the scars back to Anthony as a reminder of what happens when you try to take what’s mine.
Matteo’s men pour in from the west entrance, but they’ve forgotten what I’m capable of. They know the Mario who lost to Matteo, who went into exile. They don’t know this version—the one Giuseppe really created.
“You shouldn’t have come back.” Antonio’s voice cuts through the chaos. He emerges from the shadows like the ghost of my past sins, still moving with deadly grace despite his age. “Matteo knows you’re in New York.”
I laugh, the sound sharp as broken glass. “Come to put me down, old man?”
“Those are my orders.” He shifts his weight, and I recognize the stance—he taught it to me, after all. “Permanent this time.”
“Not fucking likely,” I sneer, cocking my gun.
He moves faster than a man his age should be able to, blade appearing from nowhere. I counter, muscle memory from a thousand training sessions guiding my response. But he’s always been craftier than most give him credit for. The blade is a feint—his real attack comes from the left, a strike that would have crushed my throat if I hadn’t seen it coming.
“You were always sloppy with your left side,” he growls, pressing the advantage.
“And you were always too confident in your tricks.” I drive my knee into his solar plexus, following with an elbow to his temple. But the old bastard rolls with it, coming up with his gun drawn.
Around us, my men engage with the mixed forces of Calabrese and DeLuca soldiers. The garage echoes with gunfire and breaking bones. Blood makes the concrete slick beneath our feet.
“Matteo should have killed you after what you did to Bianca,” Antonio snarls, circling me like the predator he is. “Or after you tried to kill the donna.”
“Matteo should have seen me for what I really am.” I match his movements, waiting for the tell in his left shoulder that always precedes his favorite combination. “The son Giuseppe really wanted.”
The words hit their mark. Antonio’s shoulder twitches and I’m already moving, flowing around his strike like water. My blade finds the nerve cluster in his arm—not a killing blow, but enough to drop him to his knees.
“Get up,” I growl, kicking his gun away. “You’re going to take a message back to my brother.”
I lean close to Antonio’s ear. “Tell my brother that if he wants me, he can come himself. And tell him that if anyone—Calabrese, DeLuca, or fucking O’Connor—tries to take Elena from me again, I’ll burn this whole city to the ground.”
The screech of tires announces my ride. The armored Mercedes slides to a stop, door flying open. I dive in just as bullets pepper the side panels, the reinforced metal absorbing impacts that would have turned me into Swiss cheese.
Elena’s hands find me immediately, pulling me fully inside. “Are you hit?” she asks anxiously.
“Take us to the Clinton house,” I order Vincent, the driver, ignoring her question as I check her for injuries. “Now.”
“Another safe house?” She sounds almost impressed. “How many do you have?”
“Sweetheart, I’ve got more houses than you have shoes.” I wink, but then Vincent’s voice cuts through from the driver’s seat.
“We’ve got company.”
I spin in my seat. Three black Escalades tear around the corner behind us—Calabrese cars, judging by the way they move in formation. “Fuck me.”
Elena’s eyes go wide as bullets spiderweb the rear window. That cool mask she’s worn all morning finally cracks. “Mario?—”
“Hold on.” I grab my Glock as Vincent takes a hard right, cutting off a delivery truck and sending us into oncoming traffic. Horns blare as he weaves between cars at speeds that would make professional drivers shit themselves. A bullet makes it through the back window.
Without thinking, I grab Elena and shove her down. “Stay low.”
Then I’m moving, rolling down the window and pulling myself halfway out. The wind hits me like a fist as I line up my shot. The first bullet takes out the lead Escalade’s front tire. It fishtails, forcing the second car to swerve.
The third car’s windshield explodes as I put two rounds through it.
“Mario!” Elena’s scream makes me duck back inside just as we take a corner on two wheels. A bus horn blares as Vincent cuts across four lanes of traffic.
“You good?” I check Elena again, noting how she’s gone pale beneath the blood spray on her face.
“Been better,” she manages through clenched teeth.
“Your driving’s worse than your mood swings.” I bark out a laugh, but more headlights in the side mirror cut it short. Two more cars joining the chase.
“Vincent!”
“Working on it, boss!” He takes another corner so sharp I have to brace against the ceiling. “But we’ve got a problem.”
“Besides the obvious?” I ask sarcastically.
“They’re herding us toward the bridge.” His voice is grim. “Where Matteo’s men will be.”
“Fuck that.” I grab Elena’s purse, ignoring her protest as I dig out her iPhone. Without hesitation, I chuck it out the window.
“Are you insane?” she shrieks, wind whipping her golden hair across her face. “That was my?—”
“They can track your GPS,” I snap, pulling her down as more bullets shatter what’s left of our back window. “Use the burner I gave you.”
“You could have just turned it off!” Elena argues, her face red with anger.
“You really want to argue about this now?” I fire three more shots at our pursuers. One catches a driver in the shoulder, sending his Escalade careening into a hot dog cart. “I’ll buy you ten new phones later.”
Vincent takes us down a service alley, scraping paint off both sides of the car. The move cuts off two of our pursuers, but three more are still on our tail. Bullets rain against the car’s armored panels like lethal hail. Elena clutches the overhead handle as Vincent executes a move that sends us up on two wheels.
“If we survive this,” she grits out, “we’re having a long discussion about your definition of ‘discreet clinic visit.’”
I can’t help but grin at her attempt at sass even while pale with fear. But then more headlights appear ahead of us—Matteo’s signature black SUVs blocking the bridge approach.
“Options?” I demand, reloading my Glock.
“I’m thinking,” Vincent mutters, then suddenly yanks the wheel hard right. We crash through a construction barrier, sending workers diving for cover. “Boss, you’re really not going to like this next part.”
“What—” Elena’s question cuts off in a scream as Vincent aims our car straight for the river. “Mario!”
I grab her close as Vincent accelerates toward the water. “When I say so, take a deep breath!”
“You have lost your fucking mind!” Elena screams but she’s already yanking off her Louboutins, ready to follow my lead despite her terror.
Bullets pepper our car from both directions now—Calabrese behind, DeLuca ahead. The river rushes up to meet us as Vincent floors it, and I notice Elena’s hand has found mine, squeezing hard enough to break bones.
“Now!” I shout, and we all gulp air just as the Mercedes becomes a submarine. The impact hits like a concrete wall. Water rushes in through the bullet holes as we sink into the murky Hudson.
But Vincent’s already triggering the emergency releases, and the doors pop open against the pressure. Elena kicks free like she was born to it, proving once again she’s more than just a society planner.
I follow her sleek form toward the surface, toward the boat I know Marco has waiting nearby. We break the surface gasping, the sounds of chaos on the bridge above us oddly muted by the water in our ears.
“I’m going to kill you,” she sputters, but lets me pull her toward the waiting boat. “Slowly. Painfully.”
“Get in line, little planner.” I hoist her onto the deck where Marco rushes towards us, face pale as he throws a blanket at Elena. “Your ex is trying to kidnap you, my brother wants me dead, and O’Connor’s probably got a price on both our heads by now.”
Her laugh holds a touch of hysteria as she wraps the blanket tightly around her, her teeth starting to chatter. “Just another Tuesday then?”