CHAPTER 27
DANTE
The element of surprise died with the sound of shattering porcelain.
Three men armed with submachine guns appeared at the top of the grand staircase before the echoes of the breaking vase even faded.
They didn't ask questions. They didn't demand a surrender.
They simply opened fire, the heavy barrage of bullets tearing through the drywall and shattering the crystal chandelier above our heads.
"Cover!" I roared, grabbing Sienna by the shoulder of her Kevlar vest and shoving her hard behind a massive marble pillar.
Silas and Elias returned fire instantly, their suppressed weapons completely drowned out by the deafening roar of the Vitiello guards. The air filled with the sharp, acrid smell of plaster dust and burnt gunpowder.
I leaned out from behind the pillar, acquiring the target on the left. I squeezed the trigger of the M4. The three-round burst caught the guard in the center of his chest. He tumbled down the carpeted stairs, his weapon clattering uselessly against the wood.
Silas dropped the second man.
The third guard ducked behind the heavy oak banister, blindly firing down into the hallway.
"I’m pinned!" Silas yelled, pressing his back against the wall as a line of bullets chewed through the plaster inches from his head.
I checked my angle. The guard was completely shielded from my position by the curve of the staircase. If I moved into the open hallway to get a clear shot, he would cut me in half before I could raise my rifle.
"Sienna," I said, my voice barely audible over the ringing in my ears.
She was crouched behind the pillar next to me, her hands gripping the tactical shotgun so tightly her knuckles were white. She didn't look panicked. She looked at me, her brown eyes wide and completely focused.
"The mirror," I told her, pointing to a massive, antique mirror hanging on the wall directly across from the staircase. "Shoot the glass."
She didn't ask why. She didn't hesitate.
Sienna stepped out from behind the pillar just enough to clear the barrel of the shotgun. She braced the stock against her shoulder, aimed directly at the center of the antique mirror, and pulled the trigger.
The blast was devastating.
The heavy glass shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, exploding outward. The sheer force of the buckshot tore the heavy gilded frame off the wall, sending it crashing down onto the staircase directly above the hidden guard.
The man yelled in surprise, instinctively throwing his hands up to protect his face from the falling debris.
He exposed his chest for exactly one second.
It was all I needed.
I stepped out and put a single round through his heart. He slumped over the banister, dead before he hit the stairs.
"Clear!" I shouted, moving immediately toward the staircase.
Silas and Elias fell in behind me, their weapons raised. I reached back, grabbing Sienna’s hand and pulling her with me. We took the stairs two at a time, boots crunching over broken glass and plaster.
The second floor was a maze of long corridors and heavy wooden doors. The gunfire downstairs had undoubtedly alerted the rest of the compound. We had less than two minutes before the exterior guards flooded the house.
"Which way?" Silas asked, his rifle sweeping the empty hallway.
"Leo’s office is at the end of the east wing," I said, pointing to the right. "He has a reinforced safe room built into the back wall. That’s where he’ll take the girl."
We moved quickly down the corridor. The doors we passed were closed, the heavy wood muffling the sounds of the panicked staff hiding inside. I didn't care about the staff. I only cared about the man at the end of the hall.
Two more guards stepped out of a side room thirty feet ahead.
Elias didn't even slow down. He fired the shotgun from the hip, the heavy slug taking the first man off his feet. I dropped the second before he could raise his weapon.
We reached the heavy double doors of Leo’s office.
They were locked.
"Breaching charge," I ordered, stepping back.
Silas pulled a small block of C4 from his tactical vest, slapping it directly over the heavy brass lock mechanism. He pressed the detonator into the plastic and backed away, holding up three fingers.
Three. Two. One.
The explosion was contained but violent, blowing the heavy doors completely off their hinges. Smoke and dust poured out into the hallway.
I went in first, the M4 raised to my shoulder.
The office was massive, lined with bookshelves and smelling of expensive cigars. It was empty. The large mahogany desk was clear. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn shut.
"He’s in the safe room," I said, moving toward the back wall.
The bookshelf on the far left was slightly ajar, revealing a heavy steel vault door hidden behind the wood. The digital keypad on the front glowed with a steady red light.
"Can you blow it?" I asked Silas, gesturing to the steel.
Silas shook his head, his expression grim. "Not without bringing the ceiling down on top of us. That’s a bank-grade vault door, boss. We need the code, or we need a torch. I don't have a torch."
I stared at the heavy steel door.
Leo Vitiello was sitting on the other side of that metal, holding Clara hostage, waiting for his exterior guards to surround the house and trap us inside. He had played a perfect defensive game.
"Dante."
Sienna stepped past me. She didn't look at the keypad. She walked directly up to the steel door and slammed the butt of her shotgun against the metal. The loud, ringing clang echoed through the quiet office.
"Leo!" Sienna yelled, her voice absolutely steady, carrying the cold, aristocratic authority she had used at the Gala. "I know you can hear me."
Silence.
"You want the city," Sienna continued, hitting the door again. "You want the Morretti syndicate. But you know that if Dante dies tonight, Sal and Carmine will burn New York to the ground to avenge him. You don't want a war of attrition. You want a clean transition of power."
A faint crackle sounded from a small intercom speaker mounted above the keypad.
"And what makes you think I can't achieve a clean transition, Mrs. Morretti?" Leo’s voice filtered through the speaker, distorted but dripping with arrogance.
"Because you don't have the ledgers," Sienna replied smoothly.
I looked at her, the sheer brilliance of her bluff stalling the breath in my lungs.
"The FBI has the ledgers," Leo countered, though a trace of hesitation bled into his voice.
"The FBI has the forged copies my father planted," Sienna lied, her tone stripped of fear. "Dante kept the originals. The ones with your signature on the payoffs for the dock unions. The ones that prove your family has been laundering money through our shell companies for a decade."
Silence stretched over the intercom.
"If we die in this house tonight," Sienna said, stepping closer to the speaker, "those ledgers go directly to the federal prosecutor in Manhattan. You might take the city, Leo, but you will spend the rest of your life running from a RICO indictment."
"You are bluffing," Leo said, but the arrogant edge was entirely gone.
"Open the door and find out," Sienna challenged. "Or sit in that box and wait for the FBI to kick it down tomorrow morning."
She stepped back, lowering the shotgun.
We waited in the quiet office. The sound of sirens began to wail in the distance. The police were coming. The window for extraction was closing rapidly.
With a heavy, mechanical groan, the red light on the keypad turned green.
The massive steel bolts retracted, and the vault door slowly swung open.
Leo Vitiello stood in the center of the small, brightly lit safe room. He was holding a pistol, but it wasn't pointed at us. It was pointed at the floor.
Clara was sitting on a small cot in the corner of the room. She was pale, trembling, and clutching her knees to her chest, but she appeared unhurt.
Sienna dropped her shotgun, pushing past me and running straight into the safe room. "Clara!"
Clara scrambled off the cot, throwing her arms around Sienna’s neck, burying her face in her sister’s shoulder.
I didn't look at the girls. I kept my M4 leveled directly at Leo Vitiello’s chest.
"Where are the ledgers, Dante?" Leo asked, his eyes hard and calculating.
"There are no ledgers, Leo," I told him quietly. "My wife lied to you."
Leo’s eyes widened as the realization hit him. He had surrendered his only leverage based on a bluff delivered by a twenty-two-year-old girl. He raised his pistol, a desperate, furious movement.
He was too slow.
I pulled the trigger.
The three-round burst caught Leo Vitiello directly in the center of his chest. The force of the impact threw him backward against the concrete wall of the safe room. He slid to the floor, his pistol clattering uselessly against the tile, dead before he stopped moving.
"Boss, we have to go!" Silas yelled from the doorway of the office. "The exterior guards are breaching the front doors!"
I lowered my rifle, turning to Sienna. She was holding Clara tightly, her eyes locked on Leo’s body. She didn't look horrified. She looked relieved.
"Let’s go," I ordered, grabbing Sienna’s arm.
We ran out of the safe room, leaving the head of the Vitiello family bleeding out on the floor of his own vault.
We retraced our steps down the hallway, taking the back stairs toward the kitchen to avoid the main foyer where the guards were breaching. The house was a chaotic mess of shouting voices and wailing alarms.
We hit the kitchen, Silas kicking the back door open.
We sprinted across the manicured lawn, the cold morning air biting into my lungs. We hit the tree line just as the first police cruisers pulled up to the front gates of the compound, their red and blue lights flashing wildly against the stone walls.
We didn't stop running until we reached the abandoned garage where we had left the truck.
Elias threw the back doors open. Sienna pushed Clara inside, climbing in right behind her. I took the passenger seat, Silas taking the wheel.
"Drive," I commanded.
Silas hit the gas. The armored truck tore out of the garage, blending seamlessly into the early morning traffic of the Bronx, leaving the sirens and the flashing lights far behind us.
I leaned my head back against the seat, the adrenaline finally beginning to crash out of my system. My arm throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, but I didn't care.
I turned my head, looking into the back seat.
Sienna was holding Clara, her chin resting on her sister’s head. She looked up at me, the exhaustion heavy in her brown eyes, but the fierce, unbreakable fire was still there.
She hadn't just survived the war. She had won it.
I reached across the center console, my hand finding hers in the space between the seats. I laced my fingers through hers, my thumb pressing firmly against the platinum ring.
The king was dead.
Long live the Queen.