Chapter 44
Don Amato’s place was a fucking castle. And since they call Naples the “City of Seven Castles,” that’s saying something.
There were a lot of real castles scattered throughout Naples. Castel dell’Ovo, Castel Nuovo, and Castel Sant’Elmo were three names I knew off the top of my head.
They were all old as fuck – eight or nine hundred years old at the very least.
I didn’t know if Amato’s mansion was as old as the rest of them… but it sure as fuck looked like it was.
Lucrezia had found a bunch of photographs of it on the internet from some sort of architectural magazine, and Luciano had sketched out the floorplan back in his apartment – but it was something else to see it in person.
It was a humongous, grey stone fortress that stood four stories tall.
The front had massive marble steps leading up to the main entrance, which was really just an interior courtyard made of stone.
Past the courtyard was an arched hallway. Inside the hallway was a door where you could enter the house. Beyond the arched hallway was another, smaller courtyard filled with a bunch of trees and plants.
Getting in by force would’ve been next to impossible. The ground floor was a stone wall all the way around the house, and the only entrances were a couple of iron doors that were bolted on the inside.
The closest windows were ten feet off the ground on the second story. According to Luciano, they were bulletproof.
And there were massive iron-barred gates at the entrance to the stone courtyard. They weren’t just for show, either; there was a gigantic iron bar across them that could’ve stopped an SUV at full speed.
Out in front of the house was a weird kind of walkway – a giant circle, basically, made of columns and stone slabs for the ceiling. In between the columns were statues of Roman gods and shit.
I guess it was something rich assholes liked.
The hundred feet between the guard house and the walkway was all cobblestone. Lots of open space and nowhere to hide, except for behind those columns and statues.
Which is why we headed for the garage on the far right of the fortress.
According to Luciano, it was a centuries-old animal stable that had been converted into a ten-car garage. A passageway had been built that connected the garage to the main house.
Luciano had a remote in his car, so he opened the roll-up door on one of the bays.
Old Man Amato had quite the collection: a Rolls, a Maybach, and a Ferrari, not to mention a shit-load of black BMWs, all bulletproof.
Luciano slid into an open space and closed the garage door behind us.
There was a guard on duty in the garage. Same as the rest of them: black suit, tie, white shirt.
He strolled towards the car, curious but completely at ease. After all, the BMW had gotten through the front gate, so there couldn’t be anything wrong.
“Roll down the window and say you’ve got a friend with you,” I ordered.
Luciano did as he was told. “I’ve got a friend with me,” he said to the guard.
“Oh?” the guard replied pleasantly. “Who?”
I opened the rear passenger door and got out.
The guard looked at me, puzzled.
He apparently didn’t understand why Luciano was hanging out with a tatted guy in a wife-beater and leather jacket.
Just as he realized something might be wrong, I raised my silenced pistol and shot the Cosa Nostra dipshit in the head.
Pop!
Blood sprayed across the Rolls-Royce next to us, and the guard collapsed onto the concrete floor with a thud.
“Pop the trunk and get out,” I ordered Luciano.
He opened the trunk, then slowly got out of the car. As he did, he stared down at the dead foot soldier on the floor of the garage.
Ciro and Romeo exited the other side of the BMW with their guns drawn. Romeo still held onto the tablet with his left hand.
Tiratore climbed stiffly out of the trunk. “Jesus Christ, it’s good to be out of there.”
“Shut up and get ready,” I snapped.
Tiratore handed a shotgun with a strap to Ciro, who slung it over his shoulder.
Then Tiratore opened a heavy plastic gun case in the trunk and quickly assembled his rifle.
With its massive silencer and big-ass scope, the thing was a beast. It looked like it could take down a fuckin’ rhino.
“You got the other shit?” I asked.
“Yep,” Tiratore confirmed, and opened up a second storage case in the trunk.
Inside were helmets with night vision goggles. Each helmet had four lenses that looked like a giant spider’s eyes. You could flip them up or down to switch between your regular vision and night vision.
The shit was top shelf – NATO special ops equipment. They’d set me back 40,000 euros apiece. But if tonight went as planned, it would be more than worth it.
There were also four silenced Berettas with small lasers mounted on top.
We would be able to see the laser dots with the night vision goggles – but the fuckers we were aiming at wouldn’t see a thing.
The Berettas were also loaded with high-capacity rounds – 30 bullets instead of the normal 15. We wouldn’t have to reload as much, which would come in handy.
There were also four bulletproof vests in the trunk.
While I kept my Beretta on Luciano, my guys slipped into the vests. Then they each grabbed a helmet, put it on, and flipped the night vision goggles up towards the ceiling. No need to use them while we still had the lights on.
Then they switched out their pistols for the new Berettas with laser sights.
I was the last to put on the goggles and switch out my gun. Ciro kept Luciano covered while I did it.
“Remember,” I said to Luciano, “you fuck us, and your wife and kids get smoked.”
“I remember,” he muttered.
“Good. Let’s go,” I said as I poked my pistol into his back.
We stepped over the puddle of blood on the concrete and walked to the door.
Luciano used a key and punched in a code on an electric deadbolt, then opened it.
I was right behind him as he walked in. Romeo and Ciro followed behind us. Tiratore brought up the rear with his rifle slung over his shoulder on a strap.
Luciano had sketched out the floorplans back at his mistress’s apartment. Everything matched what he’d drawn.
We were in a small hallway lit by overhead lights.
We walked 30 feet to the house, then entered a sort of coatroom.
A computer panel with buttons and a screen glowed on the wall just a few feet away.
“Do it,” I whispered.
Luciano punched a string of numbers on the keypad.
I tensed, waiting for an alarm to start blaring –
But there was only a soft beep.
The screen read DISARMED.
“Good,” I whispered. “You said the fuse box was close?”
Luciano pointed at a door just a few feet away.
Tiratore opened it up… glanced inside… and nodded back at me.
“What about the backup generator?” I whispered.
“There’s a switch in there that will disable it,” Luciano replied. “It’s labeled. You’ll see it.”
I nodded at Tiratore.
He went inside, and I heard chack chack chack chack as he shut off all the breakers to the main house.
The lights in the coatroom and hallway went out, plunging us into darkness.
“Goggles on,” I whispered.
I flipped my night vision headset into place –
And suddenly I could see the hallway perfectly in shades of green.
Ciro and Romeo had theirs on, too.
They looked like fuckin’ aliens with those four lenses.
“Tiratore, stay in the room with the fuse boxes until you hear from me,” I whispered.
“Got it, boss.”
I stood behind Luciano and put my left hand on his left shoulder. My right hand held my gun.
“You hear any of your guys, you identify yourself immediately,” I whispered in Luciano’s ear. “Now go.”
I pushed Luciano forward and steered him through the darkness.
We passed through a study with bookshelves and a desk. Lots of old paintings on the wall, even a suit of armor standing in the corner like a museum exhibit.
The place looked like a horror movie through my night vision goggles.
We got to the end of the room, and I whispered, “Door.”
Luciano felt for the doorknob. Once he found it, he opened it up –
And I saw a guy in a suit in the next room over, feeling his way blindly along the walls. His face looked sickly green through the night vision.
“Who’s that?” he asked gruffly, his hand reaching for his holster.
“It’s Luciano.”
I stepped out from behind Luciano and aimed my silenced Beretta at the Cosa Nostra foot soldier.
Through my goggles, the laser light looked like a bright green flare on his chest.
“Oh,” the foot soldier said, relaxing. “Nobody told me you were – ”
Before he could finish, I pulled the trigger twice.
Pop pop!
The guy’s face looked surprised –
And then he collapsed.
THUD.
As soon as the guard hit the floor, Ciro and Romeo split off to the left.
Their job was to fan out through the house, get to the rooms where the foot soldiers slept in bunkbeds, and kill them.
Even if the assholes woke up, the room would be pitch black with the electricity shut off.
With Ciro and Romeo’s night vision goggles, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Suddenly, another dude’s voice called out from the next room over. “What was that?! Edoardo, you okay?!”
I forced Luciano towards the sound of the voice, steering him around the dead body on the floor.
“It’s Luciano.” His voice sounded tense, even to me – but hopefully the guy in the room would chalk it up to the lights being out.
“Oh – what’re you doing here, sir?” the man called out in confusion. “And what happened to Edoardo?”
I smirked in the darkness.
Edoardo DEAD, motherfucker.
I steered Luciano into a living room with several couches. The foot soldier doing the talking was standing in front of one of them, like he’d been sitting just a minute ago when the lights went out.
“I don’t – ” Luciano started to answer –
Pop pop!
The foot soldier fell backwards onto the couch.
This time his body didn’t make much noise, but he gurgled out a bloody death rattle before he went completely silent.
In the distance, I heard two thuds.
Ciro and Romeo must’ve bagged a couple more Cosa Nostra assholes.
I guided Luciano through the house.
Along the way, we passed plenty of windows. Through the bulletproof glass, I could see the glow of the guardhouse and security lights along the 15-foot wall.
I specifically had Tiratore wait to shut off all the breakers so we wouldn’t alert all the guards outside. I wanted to deal with the ones inside the house first.
We finally reached the main foyer.
On my left, I could see the glass-and-iron doors that led out to the stone courtyard.
On my right, there was an identical set of doors that led out to the garden courtyard.
On either side of the garden doors were two huge staircases that zigzagged up to the floors above us.
Moonlight gleamed through the stone courtyard’s glass doors and illuminated the dead bodies on the tile floor.
Even Luciano could see well enough to avoid the puddles of blood.
I forced him up the stairs.
Somewhere above us, I heard muffled pops – dozens of them.
Ciro and Romeo must have found the sleeping foot soldiers.
Once all those silenced shots erupted, the rest of the foot soldiers on duty finally got wise. I could hear them shouting on the floors above us –
And they started using their phone flashlights to find their way.
Of course, that just made it easier to spot them. Those bright lights meant I could see them coming from a hundred feet away.
Plus, I had a secret weapon.
“Tell them it’s you,” I whispered.
“Don’t shoot – it’s Luciano!” he cried out.
The foot soldiers would come over in groups of two or three –
And I’d knock ‘em down.
Pop pop pop pop!
I must’ve killed half a dozen that way.
Ciro and Romeo met me and Luciano on the second-floor landing.
“All good?” I whispered.
“All good,” Ciro confirmed.
I pulled out my phone and texted Tiratore.
Do it.
That was the cue to shut down all the breakers on the property.
Two seconds later, the outside lights – the ones I’d seen shining through the windows – went dark.
Voices shouted in confusion outside.
Fifteen seconds later, there was a frantic knock at the front door.
“Tell them to hold on,” I whispered to Luciano.
“Hold on!” he shouted at the door.
“When the door opens, tell them it’s you and make them come in,” I continued.
A few seconds later, Tiratore ran into the foyer with his rifle still slung across his back. He got behind the door and opened it up so he was standing behind it.
The four guards who’d been inside the main gates were all standing on the front porch, pistols drawn.
“It’s Luciano!” my hostage cried out. “Come in, we have a problem with the power!”
The foot soldiers holstered their guns and stumbled into the pitch-black foyer.
“Why hasn’t the backup generator kicked in?” one asked.
Before Luciano could say anything, Tiratore shut the door.
Through my goggles, I saw him aim with his silenced pistol –
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
The gun flared bright white in my green night vision.
The foot soldiers knew something bad was happening, but they were all shot in the head before they knew what to do.
Once they were down, I called out to Tiratore, “Take out the guy in the guardhouse.”
Tiratore took his rifle off his shoulder, opened the door, and then ran out into the stone courtyard.
The courtyard was huge – probably 50 feet long and 20 feet wide and decorated with half a dozen stone statues.
The bars of the gate were more than wide enough to aim through.
Tiratore lowered into a crouch with one knee on the ground–
Then he aimed at the guardhouse through his rifle’s night vision scope.
He’d practiced three hours a day for the last four years.
It all came down to this.
I held my breath –
POP!
The rifle’s silencer flashed in the darkness.
Tiratore came trotting back through the stone courtyard.
“Dead,” he announced when he reached the front doors.
“Good – now go up to the top floor and start picking off anybody else outside,” I ordered.
“You got it, boss,” Tiratore said, then ran up the stairs.
I pulled out my phone and texted Lucrezia.
Come on in.
Twenty of my family’s cars were waiting three miles away, filled with foot soldiers. My sister was with them.
Now that nobody was manning the guard booth, they could waltz right in –
And Lucrezia could be here when I questioned Don Amato.
“Let’s go,” I said to Luciano. “Time to see Daddy.”