Chapter 33 #2
“I’m the one who told your tío he can come or get out of the way.”
I run a hand over my face as I look at my cousins.
“Maks is going to shit a brick.”
“Maks understands his place.” Tía Elle’s voice could freeze a volcano.
“Tío?”
He knows what I’m asking, and I know the answer. But I need to hear him.
“Vittoria’s in the SUV with them.”
I’m going to be sick. I’m ready to hyperventilate.
Of course, I fear for all their lives. They’re on a mission, but knowing both my parents and the woman I love could die together makes my ears ring and the blood pound in my temples.
My gaze hops from Jorge to Joaquin to Javier.
They only have one parent left. I look at Pablo, who’s already lost a brother and could lose both of his parents.
This is a fucking disaster of epic proportions.
“Where’s my wife?” Jorge, Javier, and Pablo ask together.
“Luis and I are staying behind with them. They’re at my house.”
Tío Enrique’s comment does nothing to reassure me.
Only Anneliese isn’t a sharpshooter, but Jorge’s been teaching her.
She’s fucking close. Madeline and Florencia have killed before.
None of them would flinch before pulling the trigger.
It’s only a tiny mercy that they aren’t on the way to the airport too.
“I need to talk to Papá.”
“Alejo, that isn’t wise. There’s no way Tía Catalina won’t listen too.” Pablo warns me, but I don’t care.
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Sobrino—”
“No! I’m not losing everyone I love. I’ve almost lost Vita too many times since meeting her. Papá’s come close to dying more times than I can count. You know Mamá’s the most ruthless of all your siblings.”
My mother is the kindest, funniest woman you’ll ever meet, but cross her… Or worse, cross our family—her husband and child…
“We need to go home.”
“Alejo, you need to finish things with the Torettas. How’d things go in Calabria?”
“Tío, changing the subject doesn’t change any of our minds.”
“You will finish the job.”
I grit my teeth, and my nostrils flare. Once again, my expression matches my cousins’.
“Sí, jefe.”
All of us respond the same way. That wasn’t our tío making a request. That was our boss giving a command.
“How did things go?”
“The same as in Naples. They agreed eventually.”
“Give them the reminder, then go to Palermo.”
“But that’ll delay our return by at least two days.”
“Then so be it.”
My cousins close their eyes, and I do the same. We count to ten before we open them. The habit ingrained in us as children when we learned to contain our frustration when things didn’t go our way. At three, none of us knew we were already in training.
“Sí, jefe.” I answer on everyone’s behalf.
“I’ll be in touch when we land, Alejo. I’ll keep you posted.”
Tía Elle’s tone is as unbendable as Tío’s, but it’s quieter. I believe and trust her, but I’m still panicking.
“Gracias, tía.”
The call ends, and the five of us sit in silence, digesting what we just heard. Syndicate business isn’t supposed to touch the women in our families. They’re to be revered, placed on a pedestal and protected. They’re to keep their hands clean. They’re untouchable.
Those are the fucking lies told to young men. Or rather half-truths. We do all those things because we want to and because they’re the right thing to do.
What nobody says is that we keep them out of syndicate business because they’re far more ruthless than the worst of us.
While women are more likely to bring world peace than a bunch of men, they’re also the ones who could burn it all down with a single match.
Their collective patience and memories exceed men. No one will convince me otherwise.
What we’re all thinking is the world peace they could bring isn’t what the UN envisions.
It’s the women of the Four Families banding together, bringing along our septs and branches.
If the other three families learn the women in mine marched into battle because of this personal attack on me—the absolute worst slight to my honor—they’ll show the world why their men are as powerful as they are.
It’s the women who stand beside them; the silent force that truly keeps the balance of power.
There’ll be peace because there’s nothing left.
“We need to get our shit done fast.”
“We know, Javier.” I close my eyes again and swallow. “Lo siento.” Sorry.
He doesn’t deserve me snapping at him. He takes it in stride, understanding that as much stress as he and the others are under, it’s even worse for me because Vita’s in the middle of this.
“We’ll send half the men back up to Naples. We’ll take care of this shit in Calabria tonight. We leave for Palermo in the morning.”
I force myself to think clearly.
We head back to the airport and explain to the men the new assignments. We don’t explain why. None of them need to know, and they’re all wise enough not to ask. The men who remain go to the hotel with us.
It’s the middle of the night when my cousins and I, all dressed in black with tactical gear, approach the port city of Reggio Calabria.
It’s not only where the ’Ndrangheta are based, it’s also the largest port in the area.
It’s at one end of the shipping lanes across the Strait of Messina, the route to Sicily.
“We’re in and out in less than ten.”
My cousins and I each partner with one of our men, fanning out to the warehouses and docks we know the ’Ndrangheta control.
We don’t give a shit who’s waiting at home for the ’Ndrangheta men running the shipyard.
It’s like a movie as we pick off anyone in sight.
It’s not shoot first, ask questions later.
There are no questions we care to ask. We’re carrying explosives that’ll light up the night like it’s New Year’s.
My partner—José—and I scout our dock and quickly realize there’re people on the nearby boats who’ll see us working and would most certainly notice a pile of explosives sitting between their vessels.
“I have to go in.”
José takes the backpack I hand him and opens it along with the one he carries while I strip off my shoes, shirt, and pants.
I’m never excited to get into the water in a marina.
Too much oil in the water, but necessity dictates I do.
As I shove my clothes into the backpack I carried, I glance at the next dock over and notice Pablo doing the same thing.
He must sense me because he glances over. We nod.
While I undressed, José prepped the explosives to make it easier for me once I’m in the water.
Our backpacks are waterproof, so I lift mine and strap it to my front.
I ease into the water like some spec ops guy in a movie.
All of us have the camo paint on to disguise us.
We’ve been told with our dark eyes, we often appear like soulless demons when our lighter skin’s covered.
Good.
Motherfucker.
This water is fucking freezing.
My huevos just sought shelter inside me.
I glide under the dock and snap on my headlamp.
I keep it tilted down enough for me to see but not to be a beacon to anyone else.
Pablo—our highly trained biologist and chemist—is our explosives expert.
He works alongside Javier, whose undergrad was in engineering, even though he became an attorney.
I trust them to ensure I don’t blow myself up.
I work efficiently while I attach the bombs to the farthest part of the dock I can safely reach and the part closest to shore.
We want nothing left. I swim back to the shore and hoist myself out just as Pablo does the same.
There’s no time for us to dry off, so we use our shirts to shake off enough water for us to struggle into our pants.
Then we’re stuffing the shirts back in the bag and taking off.
“Everything set?” Pablo glances over his shoulder.
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. The one at the end didn’t attach well, so we need to get this done.”
I tap my earpiece, and I hear Tres J’s responses.
They, along with their men, sprint out of the warehouses and join us at the SUVs.
We pile into the vehicles, and Jorge and the other drivers reverse out of the marina.
They could turn around, but we want to watch the show.
Pablo has Joaquin’s laptop, and he’s tapping away like an evil genius bent on global destruction.
Okay.
Maybe that’s a little exaggerated, but he’s concentrating extra fucking hard.
“Tres, dos, uno.”
The night sky resembles ancient Pompeii with flames leaping and debris dropping like blobs of lava. The docks explode into shards of concrete and wood, rising then falling. The buildings’ glass, drywall, and steel burst outward like one of those decorative boxes strippers supposedly pop out of.
Alarms and sirens go off as screams fill the air.
We’re now outside the marina’s gates and pulled off onto the side of the road in the shadows.
Jorge and the other drivers turned off our headlights a quarter mile before we got here and have kept them off.
We’re well hidden as we wait. It’s ten minutes before emergency services arrive with enough crew and tools to put out anything.
Firefighters work to control the dock fires, protecting yachts and commercial vessels, to stop the spread of sparks to nearby structures.
It’s nearly an hour before Don Pasquale and his underboss arrive.
Both men gesture animatedly as we use our parabolic sonic listening devices, and Pablo translates.
They’re swearing up a storm as they argue over who’s the likely culprit.
Even from a distance, it’s easy to recognize which man is the don since the firefighters keep their heads lowered whenever they address him.
Everyone else stays away while the underboss directs their men to investigate.
“It’s Dante.” Joaquin hands me his phone.
“How’d it go?” He’s leading our team of sicarios—hitmen—in Naples.
“A booming success. There’s nothing left, Capitán.”