Chapter 26
ETTORE
“Fucking hell,” Mark whispers as we approach the estate. It’s a bloodbath at the entrance, five bodies strewn across the concrete, bloody red smears marking their demise.
“Keep your head on,” I growl, then knock on the driver’s partition. “Gear up. We’re all warriors today.”
“Yes, sir.”
I leap from the car and walk around to the trunk, grabbing a semi-automatic and shouldering it. My mind tries to go to all the ugly things that could be happening, all the depravity, all the evil I know they’re capable of. There’s no telling what they’re doing to my girl and my woman if—
But I can’t go there, can’t entertain it. I have to be ice.
They’ve blown away the gate’s lock with explosives. They came prepared. Something tells me they’ve been planning this for a while.
I rush onto the estate, scanning the terrain.
“Left,” Mark roars.
I spin, spotting two men pop up from behind the fountain.
I drop to a knee and aim, pulling the trigger in controlled bursts.
I try not to enjoy this, but these bastards deserve it.
Falling face-first into the fountain, dead because some lowlifes convinced them they could step to me.
To Ettore fucking Bellandi, the king of this town.
Motherfuckers. They’re all dead.
Raging, I move through the front door. I take the quieter corridors as I make my way toward the safe room, Mark at my shoulder. More of my men are arriving, but we need to be careful. Mark roars when a man in a stained white uniform leaps at him with a knife, stabbing him in the shoulder.
“Turn him my way,” I growl at Mark.
He winces, wrestling with the man, then jerks him toward me. I bash him on the side of the head with the grip of my rifle. He grunts, then slumps in Mark’s grip.
“Finish him,” I say, then I keep moving. Behind me, I hear the wet noises of a knife furiously taking a life.
I sneak toward the pantry, ducked low, reloading with a fresh magazine. I’ve only got one left. Hopefully there aren’t too many of these fucks.
I stop with my back to the wall outside the door.
I can hear Bastian. “We’ve got a drill out here, little pigs,” he says, chuckling.
“Don’t make me huff and puff and drill a hole in your little prison and come in there and do whatever the fuck I want to…
I think I lost my three little piggies theme there, ladies, but you get the point. ”
“Take whatever you want,” Livia calls, her voice poised and civilized. “But leave us alone.”
Mark joins me, crouching low, covered in blood.
Some his, most not. I raise my finger to my lips, then peek around the corner.
I pull back and move down the wall, lowering my voice to just barely above a whisper.
“Four men, including Bastian. Bastian is the second from the left. I’ll take the two on the right. You take the far left.”
“We need Bastian alive.”
“We don’t,” I growl. “That would just be a bonus. Let’s go.”
My heartbeat is steady somehow. My nerves are calm. In this strange battle high, I think about the fact that this is one of the perks of this life. This calm. This certainty. If I had lived any other life, I wouldn’t be able to save my woman and child now.
I nod to Mark. He knows that means to silently count to three.
On three, we emerge from cover. Two of the men are looking at us. One is on his knees, fiddling with the vault’s lock. Bastian has his back to us, taunting.
The two men drop like boneless sacks. The third slumps against the vault, kissing his brains. Bastian spins, raising his gun. I send a spray through his arm. He screams then drops the gun, falling onto his ass and crawling back toward the vault.
“Ettore, stop, my father—”
I run forward three steps and then kick him so hard in the head I feel one of my toes break. I don’t give a fuck. I kick him again, and he slumps sideways, twitching. I take a few steps back, ready to do it again, but Mark rushes at me. He pulls me away from him.
“Enough.”
“He doesn’t deserve to breathe!”
“Agreed,” Mark says. “But enough.”
I shrug him off, my ears ringing from the gunfire.
On the floor, Bastian rolls onto his back, his face splitting into a bloody, delirious smile. “We could have something,” he moans.
I raise my gun. “What did you fucking say?”
“It’s… so easy,” he wheezes. “Me and your little… We could be a real couple. We could have something special.”
“Ettore!” Mark roars.
I raise my gun and pull the trigger.
Click.
“Lucky bastard,” I grunt, throwing the gun to the ground. “Get him out of here. Secure the estate. Rally the troops. I’m taking my girls someplace safe.”