17. Gabriel Returns to Italy #2
He laid it out in simple terms. “We enter through the emergency door in the back of the building that brings us into the basement. We follow the piping, I’ll kill the power.
On the first floor, we split into two groups.
Carmelo, your team covers the west wing.
Diego, you and your team take east. I’ll eliminate the Bratva in my office and kill the surveillance cameras.
Bodies get wrapped and moved to the conference room near the front door.
Same for the day shift. Six in that group. Diego, you got the truck?”
“All set, Boss,” Diego replied.
“Take them to the incinerator. Carmelo, arrange for the Bratva’s vehicles to be sold.”
“You got it, G,” Carmelo said.
“This sends a powerful message,” Gabriel continued. “If they’re smart, the Bratva will move on. If not, we continue to slaughter them.”
“Love the plan,” said one of his men.
“Simple and clean,” said another. “Glad to have you back, Boss.”
He eyed his team. “We good?”
They were.
“Starting tonight, body armor.” Gabriel banged on his chest. “If I’m in it, so are you.” He shifted toward Carmelo. “You understand?”
“No problem, Boss,” Carmelo said.
None of his other guys had an issue with it.
“Not me. I’m out,” said Diego.
Gabriel eyed his bodyguard. “You won’t wear armor, you can’t work for me.”
Diego chuckled.
No one else did.
“You’re messin’ with us, right?” Diego asked.
Gabriel swept his gaze over his team. “Angelo got hit.” The words burned like acid on his tongue. “Two in the chest. He didn’t make it.”
Silence while they absorbed his words.
“No,” Diego blurted. “Not Angelo.”
Everyone expressed their condolences, surprise, sadness.
“You’ve all been with me for years,” Gabriel said. “You’re the smartest, the toughest, the most ruthless.” He stood, cast his gaze over them. “I won’t lose anyone else.”
“Time to weapon up,” Carmelo said, “and that includes body armor.”
Gabriel walked to the metal door in the back of the room, unlocked it with a key, and entered a large supply closet.
From there, he found the hidden button behind the bleach cleaner, tapped it and shifted toward the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling.
Once it captured an image of his face, the door slid open.
His safe room.
He made his way to his locker. While he got ready, he stayed keenly aware of his team.
A glance this way or that, but he was doing more listening than watching.
He swapped his dress clothes for black pants, black sweater, black boots.
Only the body armor remained beneath his clothes.
When finished, he pulled the helmet from his station.
When he faced his team, pride filled him.
No one—not even Diego—had quit on him.
He strapped on his helmet, confirmed his magazines were loaded before holstering his pistols. He pulled his long rifle from the shelf, checked for bullets, then pocketed two additional clips, fully loaded.
He handed Carmelo an earpiece. “We stay in touch.” In the past, Angelo had received that communication device.
“Thank you, Boss.” Carmelo inserted it into his ear.
That simple gesture was a big shift in power. Gabriel needed a new underboss. Carmelo was being tested, and he knew it.
One by one, the men returned to the first floor. They flipped down their goggles, left out the back door. Diego drove him in his Mercedes. Carmelo was in charge of the rental truck. The rest of his team jumped in vehicles and the group drove into the silent night.
The calm before the storm.
It was just before three in the morning, Gabriel’s favorite time… when evil came out to play. And he was more than happy to start the game. Excitement charged through him. He could not wait to take back what was his.
Forty-five minutes later, they turned down the street of his whisky plant. The drivers killed their headlights. They pulled into Santini Spirits, drove around back, silenced the engines.
In stealth mode, everyone exited the vehicles. The tactical sling his guys wore with their long rifles allowed his shooters to be hands-free. Even so, they cradled their weapons as they fell in line behind Gabriel.
He’d been one step ahead. When Gabriel built the distillery, he included an emergency escape route. Didn’t think he’d need it to break into his own building.
They entered through the unmarked door and filed into the dark basement.
Pipes ran the length of the ceiling, so they kept their heads down as they made their way through the maze.
At the main circuit breaker, Gabriel killed the electricity upstairs.
Moving like ghosts in the dead of night, he led them up the cement stairs.
He keyed the lock, cracked open the door.
No guards. Only pitch-black darkness.
As instructed, his teams split off in opposite directions. With his long gun at the ready, Gabriel took off toward his office, located on the second floor. In stealth mode, he hurried down the hallway, ducked into the stairwell.
Clear.
He climbed the stairs two at a time, then cracked open the door to the second floor. The second a gunshot pierced the silence, panic would set in. And the Bratva would know they were being attacked. But Gabriel and his crew had the darkness to hide them… and the Kevlar to stop a bullet.
As he approached his office, a gruff voice stopped him. With his back against the wall, he listened.
“Goddamnit,” said the Bratva. “The fucking power went out. I’ll call you back.”
“I need you in DC,” said the Russian on the phone, his thick accent hard to understand.
“I’m running distillery,” pushed back the mobster.
“That’s an order,” barked the man on the phone. “Get your ass here. We have problem.”
Gabriel leaned around the door frame. The Bratva was sitting in Gabriel’s desk chair, his large pistol lay on the desk.
“Pavel is dead,” said the man on the phone.
The Russian in Gabriel’s office shot to attention. “Who the fuck killed my brother?”
“He got gunned down at kink club. I need help with package delivery.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that,” roared the man as he stared into the darkness.
“We think Santini is involved,” said the man on the phone.
“The team took him out,” said the Bratva. “He got killed outside his restaurant weeks ago.”
“We never got confirmation. If he’s alive, he killed your brother. Now, do you want to come to America and finish job?”
“Yes, Dmitri.”
“It’s Mr. Petrov to you. Next time, take the damn order and don’t push back!”
The line went dead.
Gabriel pulled his CANiK from its holster, stormed into his office, and pistol whipped the Russian. Then he yanked him out of the chair and punched him in his oversized gut, knocking the wind out of him.
“You think you can take my company from me?” Gabriel growled.
The man couldn’t catch his breath.
“You fucked with the wrong man,” Gabriel hissed.
He pressed the gun to the enemy’ head, pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The man went limp, crumpled to the floor. Gabriel raised his weapon, squeezed the trigger.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
He grabbed the dead man by his jacket, dragged him down the hallway to the elevator bank.
“One down,” Gabriel murmured to Carmelo through the comm.
“We got three,” Carmelo replied. “The fourth is hiding.”
“Send your team up for the body. It’s outside the elevator.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“I’ll kill the video cameras inside and out,” Gabriel said. “Who’s going after the fourth?”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“Diego just got him,” Carmelo said. “He was hiding in the women’s restroom.”
“Wrap them,” Gabriel instructed. “Move them to the conference room.”
Gabriel returned to his office, shoved aside the Bratva’s laptop, and logged into his computer. Within seconds, he killed the surveillance system, then deleted the footage from that evening.
Once finished, he strode toward the lobby to check in with his team. On the way, he found a group of workers huddled together, terrified. Though still dark, he had to let them know he was there and that his team was taking back the business.
“Silenzio. Ascoltatemi. Sono io, Gabriel Santini.” Silence. Listen to me. It’s me, Gabriel Santini.
The screams turned to whimpers, then a woman said, “Come puoi dimostrarlo?” How can you prove that?
“Hello, Vittorio and Anna,” Gabriel said. “Emma, welcome back from maternity leave. Good to see you, Lorenzo and Tomasso. I’m taking back what’s ours, but I need you to be brave, stay where you are, and not make a sound. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes, of course,” Vittorio said. “We are happy you are home. The second shift is coming.”
“I know,” Gabriel said. “It will all be over soon.”
Blessed silence filled the space. Gabriel found his first team, led by Carmelo.
They’d positioned themselves inside the main entrance.
Though their triumphant first stage of the ambush should have calmed him, it hadn’t.
Revenge pulsed through him with every beat of his heart.
He breathed deep, his confidence filling him with complete determination.
He’d built his businesses from the dirt beneath them and, while one day his body would be returned to the dirt, today was not that day.
A car door slammed shut, then another.
“Two from the second shift are here,” Gabriel said into the earpiece. “Carmelo, you ready?”
“All set, Boss.”
Gabriel raised his long rifle. Though he should have felt remorse, he did not.
The front door opened. Two men entered.
“Why lights out?” asked the Russian.
RATATATATATATATATATATAT!!!
Both men dropped.
“Go,” Gabriel said.
Four of his men moved into action. The bodies were wrapped in black waterproof sheets. While they were being moved into the nearby conference room, gunfire erupted outside.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Gabriel bolted into the darkness.
Diego was down. Two Bratva stood over him, their guns pointed at his head.
Gabriel pumped them with led—RATATATATATATATATATATAT!!!—and they dropped.
His team ran outside. Gabriel strode to Diego, yanked off his glove as Carmelo rushed over.