15. ~Nico~
15
~Nico~
Elia Volpe had certainly let the illusion of power go to his head.
Abuse of power didn’t even cover it where he was concerned.
I shot a glance at Dante Rivera, who was standing beside me, shaking his head with a disgusted expression as he took in Elia’s repulsive antics from our vantage point on the catwalk high above the torturous show taking place below.
Dante’s revulsion and loathing of Elia was such that he’d insisted on being a part of this operation, needing to see the trumped-up Leone Capo fall.
I was tapping my fingers on the butt of my gun in my right hip holster as I waited for the confirmation from Remo and Cassio who were leading the other two units of our soldiers on this op, which was a collaboration between Marchetti soldiers under my charge and Benzino soldiers. Combined with the safehouse takedowns happening at the same time tonight, these operations were the first of their kind—two families merging their soldiers and resources as one for a mission. Given how easily Carlo and I were able to work together, how our strategies aligned well and our temperaments, values, and outlooks on key things meshed exceptionally well, I doubted this sort of thing would be a one-off. It was the beginning of a close-knit alliance that would serve to bolster both families and ensure a smooth working relationship going forward.
Seconds ticked on by, which felt a hell of a lot more like minutes, as I waited for the other two units to take position.
I’d never been so anxious for that to come to pass before.
I’d never really had to wait like this before, or concern myself with the lives of so many, of a multi-pronged and complicated operation like this.
I’d spent a lot of time as Capo getting my hands dirty, either Milo and I going it alone, or with a trusted few.
But times were changing, even beyond the scope of this operation.
And in this particular case, it was more complicated.
While the safehouse takedowns when combined together were essentially a massacre, those Erebus targets were ghosts, so their deaths would go unnoticed. These Leone soldiers gathered here didn’t fall into the same category.
If we simply took them out by blowing the warehouse to hell with them all contained inside, or even took them down in a hail of gunfire, we were talking more than three hundred deaths to cover up. It just wasn’t feasible. And it would end up bringing my new version of the Marchetti Syndicate down with it, alongside the Benzinos as well.
Besides, there were soldiers present here who’d already lost faith in the Leone Family and were disgusted and absolutely not on board with the way things had come to be. They wanted out, and we had evidence that showed several dozen of them were already in the process of moving their families and planning their escape. They didn’t need to die for Carlo and me to succeed, for the Leone Family to fall.
Both Elia and Angelo had become so delusional and severely overestimated their power to such a degree that they’d really believed pulling this shit tonight would keep their soldiers intact and reinforce their loyalty. They thought they were untouchable. The fact that both Elia and Angelo’s soldiers had gathered here tonight under one roof was foolish enough and clear proof of their level of delusion.
With Erebus’ support, they considered themselves beyond interference from enemy forces, namely me and Carlo.
When, in fact, they’d just made it that much easier for us to end the Leone Family here and now. With the exception of Angelo, who was being bolstered by Erebus forces, like Leo was. But they would be dealt with soon enough, too.
I tried to ignore the screams echoing hauntingly through the warehouse as Dante and I relayed instructions to the other two units getting into position, on who to put down hard, and who to extricate once the operation got underway.
Twenty-five Leone soldiers were being tortured in the clearing near the entrance of the warehouse down below as Elia held court, uttering a whole load of bullshit about loyalty and treachery, words he clearly had no true comprehension of, given what he was doing to his own men—and Angelo’s at his orders from afar.
Several of the victims he was taking it out on were bound to pallet racks naked and on display to everyone, some of them being cut into with blades, others having fucking power drills driven into their thighs. There were half a dozen also bound to metal chairs, their knuckles and kneecaps being shattered to shit. The ones strapped to worktables, also on display for the crowd gathered around to see, were being forced to deepthroat the fists of their torturers, while money—coins and balled-up bank note—were being shoved into their asses as they squirmed, bucked and screamed.
Elia was clearly taking a leaf out of both Angelo and Santino’s books.
As if that wasn’t enough, there were five naked soldiers hogtied, having the cocks of their torturers—the soldiers still loyal to Elia and Angelo—shoved down their throats.
Elia would pause every now and then in his speech, flip his brown mohawk, then take part himself, fisting their hair so brutally and taking his pleasure, his cock hanging out of his leather pants as he moved from one to another, before then getting back down to his pathetic speech.
“I can’t stand much more of this,” Dante whispered to me.
I acknowledged what he was saying, and I was having a great deal of trouble myself, and I looked down the line at the fifty soldiers with me hidden in the shadows up on the catwalk above, seeing the same reactions from them. These were hardened fucking men, too. That was how horrific what we were witnessing actually was. How truly demented Elia was.
My earpiece buzzed, and I finally got word from both teams, one after the other.
They were in position.
There was a team located at the rear of the warehouse, C-4 all set to blow the door, create a distraction, wherein they’d then storm inside.
The other team was positioned at the cargo bay over to the west of the warehouse, ready to move in at my word.
And the fifty soldiers I had with me were crouching low on either side of the catwalk, twenty-five to my right to take the metal steps with me, and the other fifty to the left of Dante to take the other set of stairs.
I gave Dante a chin lift, and he started moving his men right to the edge of the steps.
I signaled mine, and then I sent the command via my earpiece, “Move in. Hard and fast. No fatalities. Elia is mine.”
In the next second, all hell broke loose.
From our perspective, controlled chaos.
The explosion from the rear door had Elia jolting, and his torturers pulling up short, the crowd looking all around, startled.
Those in the crowd were unarmed. Another way for Elia to ensure he held all the power.
But the torturers were armed to the hilt, obviously making them priority to take down.
As my team targeted them, I fired off a shot at one of them holding up a drill; the bit covered in flesh and blood. He shrieked like a little bitch and dropped the drill as the bullet drove through his clavicle, making him feel a mass amount of pain that he could barely handle, that most could barely handle. It was nothing less than he deserved for what he’d dealt out to his victims under Elia’s sick orders.
Another pulled his fist from a victim’s throat, making the guy vomit all over himself, and as he turned, our gazes clashing, I fucking kneecapped him with another bullet, his screams adding to the cacophony of battle swirling all around.
My team worked well alongside me, disposing of the others strategically.
Dante’s team was tasked with extricating the torture victims and getting them medical assistance once they were clear of the immediate area, and I watched them heading across the warehouse floor toward them to do just that.
Our team at the rear door burst on in and so did those entering through the cargo bay.
Bullets zinged through the air, plunging into kneecaps, or delivering flesh wounds, anything to put them down and out of the fight without outright killing them. Not that they’d be anything resembling a threat once we were through with them. They just needed to remain breathing, technically alive, but that still gave us a lot of leeway where taking them down and incapacitating them was concerned.
I caught sight of Elia panicking in all the chaos.
He made two of his torturers cover him, and he tried to make a break for safety down one of the aisles.
That was my opening.
I ensured everything was going to plan, watching as Dante’s team worked to get the torture victims out of harm’s way, while mine disposed of the torturers. The other two teams took out those we’d identified as still being loyal to Elia, while also extricating those who were no different from the torture victims, being forced to follow those they no longer had faith in through fear of death—or worse, as we’d just witnessed.
It was under control, things progressing according to plan.
Now it was time to let loose.
I wasn’t used to doing that around so many witnesses.
And, even though I’d prepped our soldiers, I still didn’t know how it was going to go over once I unleashed and let that feral state take me.
But I did know that I needed to let it out.
And I needed to know more than anything that I could pull it back now.
There was too much at stake for me to have this dark, twisted, and brutal side of myself existing without a means to control it.
Too many people were counting on me.
Even when the war was won, with me taking the helm of Boss, that wouldn’t alter.
I had to be able to reconcile that part of myself with the rest.
And this was as good a test as any, where it mattered that I both unleashed and kept control.
No small feat.
Then again, none of this had been.
But we’d still come this far. So far.
I wouldn’t falter now.
I sprinted for the aisle that Elia had disappeared down.
When I was just a few feet out, I caught sight of a door to an office over on the right side of the aisle. Although there was no exit this way, it looked like Elia was intending to barricade himself inside the room and hide like the true coward that he was, and leave these two guys with him to defend his position. His two torturers who were doused in the blood of their victims. Victims whose utter agony I’d watched them take pleasure in.
There was about to be some major role reversal.
I went to that headspace, focusing on the violence of the battle raging all around, the blood soaking their jeans and tees, the sadistic expressions on their faces as they’d tormented their own. But most of all, and the thing that had triggered this state for me in the first fucking place, the powerlessness they’d levied upon their victims. Taking away their agency, their choices, depriving them of hope entirely.
And then a snarl was escaping me as I stormed down the aisle.
It caught their attention, and Elia spun while in the process of being ushered toward that fucking office.
“Nico,” he sneered. “You’re making a big mistake. You won’t survive this.”
“Your perception is deeply flawed.” A growl rumbled from me. “This is your execution.”
A dark thrill rolled through me as fear broke through some of that heavy delusion of his.
“No. We’re the Leone Family, you can’t just—”
“There’s no more Leone Family. Once we’re done here tonight, that will be an absolute certainty.”
“You doing this, working with the Benzinos too, bringing in the disgraced Leone Underboss in Dante… it’s an act of fucking war!”
I stepped ever closer. “We’re beyond war. This is utter decimation.”
His eyes widened, and he even trembled, unable to conceal it. His true colors were showing. The real weak bastard beneath the facade and all the muscle he’d been too fortunate to have bolstering him.
“Take him the fuck out!” he raged at his two guys.
As they came at me, Elia made a dash for the office door.
I reacted lightning-fast, drew a tactical blade, then lobbed it toward him.
It cut through the air rapid fire, then drove through his upper left arm, and into the frame of the door behind him, effectively pinning him to it.
His shrieks just fueled the intensity taking me over as I sank deeper into my feral state.
And, as the first of his men reached me, I reacted, firing a bullet through the center of his right hand that had him crying out and dropping his automatic weapon instantly.
As it clattered to the ground, I bolted forward and kicked it away, back the way we’d all come.
Then I snagged the guy by his bloodied hand, digging my fingers into the wound for good measure that had him shuddering and screaming in my hold as I hauled him into the other torturer. The impact sent them both crashing to the floor in a heap of tangled limbs.
The guy beneath the wounded one shoved him off with a bellow of indignation, then sprung to his feet and charged me.
I caught him by his tee just as he hit, spun, and slammed him into one of the pallet racks. My hand closed around his throat as he struggled against me, cursing and trying to break free from my hold.
I snarled down at him, the ferociousness of it that I couldn’t hold in check while I was like this, making him shrink away—or try to. I squeezed his throat, watching him gag and fight for air.
In my peripheral vision, I saw the torturer with a hole through his hand scrambling to his feet, looking to go to Elia and remove the knife that I had keeping him from running.
At the same time, two more of Elia’s soldiers turned down the aisle, slipping past the battle to come to their Capo’s aid.
I shoved my gun into the guy’s temple and pulled the trigger, blowing his skull to shit.
As I released him, blood and brain matter splattered on my face and neck, my pulse pounding in my ears, that primal part of me taking the lead.
The remaining three assholes were closing in a moment later.
Everything was a blur of violent furor as I unleashed on them, tearing into them with a blade, countering their blows as my own snarls and roars of ferocity echoed hauntingly in the air all around me, fueling me, and punishing them. The snap of bones, their screams, blood splattering, all collided into a spectacular bout of aggression and violent intensity.
“Jesus fuck,” Elia choked.
My head jerked in his direction as I shoved my boot into a screaming soldier’s skull, silencing him as it knocked him out cold.
And then I stormed up to Elia.
I ripped the blade out, and he shrieked and convulsed against the door.
“Please!” he cried, as he watched me spin it in my hand right in front of his face.
“Isn’t that what your own soldiers begged you for? A shred of fucking mercy?”
“That was… I made a mistake. I… I’m sorry. Please. Please.”
“There’s no mercy for a piece of shit like you. You’re beyond repentance and you fucking know it.”
“Nico, listen—”
His words ended on a shriek as I plunged my blade into his gut.
I didn’t stop there.
The monster in me that was seeking some form of retribution, that needed to deliver punishment, wouldn’t allow it.
I cut into him, slicing up, then out, tearing him open as bloodcurdling screams filled my ears.
Only when they ceased because he’d passed out from the agony did I stop.
And then I drove the blade through his heart, sending him straight to hell.
I stepped back, breathing heavily, and looked out at what I’d done.
Bloodied, disfigured bodies covered the floor, blood pooling all fucking over.
But aside from Elia, I’d managed to leave them alive.
Even while I’d been in the throes of that state.
More than even that, I’d pulled out of it on my own, once the job had been completed.
I’d achieved control that had previously eluded me.
Cheers and clapping caught my attention, and I looked up, blinking rapidly to fully return to my normal state, to see my soldiers and those of Carlo’s gathered at the end of the aisle, the battle having come to an end. They’d clearly seen my performance .
And they weren’t reviled by it.
They weren’t even judging it.
Nor were they displaying the least bit of concern.
Instead, they were reveling in it.
In the power that I’d demonstrated, the ability to protect those under my charge.
That, combined with the control I’d managed to muster this time, was a hell of a thing.
I smiled to myself.
The doubts that had been plaguing me finally eased off.
I had this.
I’m ready.