Chapter 18 #2
The sound was deafening in the enclosed room.
The man’s head snapped back against the leather chair, a neat hole between his eyes, red mist shot out into the air behind him.
His body twitched once, the firing of a final synapse, then went perfectly still, still upright, as if he were simply considering the ceiling.
Blood dripped to the floor. A mess I’ll make someone else clean up later.
The other Serpent went white. He didn’t flinch. That was the only thing saving him right now.
Fiorenzo placed the gun on the table pointed in the Serpents direction and lowered his arm casually.
I took a slow breath, taking in my cologne and coffee.
“Failure is expensive,” I said softly. “But so is success with the wrong mindset. I don’t want boys who think dying for me is enough. I want men who are too afraid of disappointing me. Too afraid to fail.”
I turned my gaze on the surviving Serpent fully now.
“You’re going to ride back to your clubhouse or wherever you all congregate,” I began to say.
“You’re going to sit under whatever ugly neon you all drink beneath and you’re going to tell them exactly what happened in this room.
You tell them the Vincinos and the Bolivars don’t tolerate waste.
You remind them all that they work for me.
That they’re my dogs, not my partners. If you bring me wins, you eat.
If you bring me excuses, you end up like your friend there. ” I jerked my chin toward the dead one.
The Serpent glanced at the corpse sitting politely in its chair, a line of blood sliding down its temple.
The Serpent swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he said hoarsely.
“Good,” I said. “Now go.”
Fiorenzo rose, this time to usher the man out. The Serpent kept his eyes on the floor and tried not to step in the blood.
When the door closed behind them, the silence dropped differently.
“That’s one way to negotiate,” Nico muttered.
“It’s not a negotiation,” I reminded. “It’s a language. He’ll translate for the rest of them better than any speech I could have made. Words he would have left out. Actions? Those he’ll remember.”
I looked at Yashida.
“Now,” I started. “We’ve rattled their cage.
That Devil is dead. Dante’s glass is cracked.
The Vipers were hit too. Devils were warned.
Our name is in all their mouths whether they want it there or not.
I’m not na?ve enough to think they won’t try to hit us back.
So, what fallout can we expect to come our way? ”
Yashida leaned back, thinking.
“We have three categories of targets,” he said.
“Small fronts, shell companies, stash spots. But most of those aren’t worth the bullets to go after.
I’m sure they’ll realize that soon if they haven’t already.
It’s how I’ve helped you sculpt your business, your empire.
To protect the most important stuff, which leads to number two.
The bigger assets. They’re here in the city.
Skyscrapers. Real estate. Legitimate fronts hiding illegitimate money.
They won’t touch those without inviting cops and cameras to the party.
You own this city. Third, your family itself, which is already closely monitored and protected.
Same goes for Roman. We’ve already bled the edges.
If we want him to move, or get him where it hurts, we have to hit something he thinks is untouchable. ”
“The Vipers,” Nico said. “Fierce, but too small.”
“Correct,” Yashida agreed immediately. “We already tried them. The hit on their yard. They only got angrier, not weaker. People like them don’t respond to offers after getting slapped.
You can’t buy pride that protective. You can only kill it, and they’re dug in tight now.
The cost would be higher than the return. ”
“And the ledger?” Fiorenzo asked as he quietly reentered and returned to his seat. “We could go after it again. Send more men this time.”
“It’s already going to be used against us,” I said.
“We don’t need it back in our hands to have to keep following it.
I remember enough of what’s inside to keep playing hard ball for now.
Bringing the book back here only gives Roman another chance to get a look if someone gets sloppy and fumbles it again. ”
I tapped a finger lightly on the table and jerked my chin at the still bleeding corpse in the room.
“Roman,” I said. “That’s where the pressure belongs. That’s where we direct our focus.”
Yashida inclined his head. “He’s building a new monument to himself at the end of that strip,” he said. “Casino. Hotel. High-profile. High-risk. We burn his future. Destroy his hopes. That will send a statement.”
I smiled slowly. “We drown him in the water he thought was watching his back,” I said.
“That’s loud,” Nico said. “Very loud. We hit it while it’s still a skeleton or wait until the glass is up?”
“Skeleton,” Yashida said. “Less public casualties. Less uncontrolled chaos. More insult. You kill a man’s dream while it’s still halfway built, you show him you were inside it before the walls were even finished.
It’s like a home invasion. It takes away that sense of security. Replaces it with a deep-seeded fear.”
Isabella shifted in her chair, interest sharpening. “And how do you plan on getting his eyes there?” she asked.
My mind was already there.
“Vladimir,” I said.
Three heads turned. Yashida didn’t look surprised. Isabella’s mouth curved. Nico blinked once.
“Roman’s Russian,” I went on. “The one we’ve been feeding from. He’s in charge of that build day to day. Concrete. Wiring. Design meetings. Roman trusts him with the bones and the curtains. All the domestic shit the old man pretends he doesn’t care about.”
I took a sip of my drink finally.
“Vladimir will call the family in,” I said.
“Tell Roman’s wife they want her opinion on the ‘family suites.’ On the restaurant that’ll carry her vineyard’s name on the wine list. Tell the daughter there’s a private floor dedicated to her favorite retailers.
Make it sound like a tribute. Roman likes to let them feel like they have a say in the pretty parts.
Vladimir knows exactly which words to use; he’s been watching those dinners for years. ”
Nico frowned. “Seems… risky,” he said. “Getting them all in one place. Roman’s not stupid. He might smell something’s up.”
“That’s why Vladimir does it,” I said. “If the Russian says jump, Roman asks how high the concrete should be poured underneath.” I smiled thinly. “The old man thinks having one foreigner at his table makes him cosmopolitan instead of compromised.”
Yashida nodded slowly. “We use Vladimir to gather the family at the site. Then we strike,” he said. “Construction makes for good accidents. Fires. Collapses. Unfinished stairwells. Plenty of places to make a point and call it a tragedy.”
Isabella’s voice cut through before he could diagram it further.
“Let’s not kill them,” she suggested.
We all looked at her.
She uncrossed her legs, leaned forward, eyes bright the way I had seen men’s eyes get before a fight.
“You want Roman to move?” she said. “You want the Devils and those women to fling themselves headfirst into a fire for him? You don’t just burn his building. You do what my cousins do to their enemies. You take leverage. You take something that breathes.”
“A hostage,” Fiorenzo said.
“A few,” she agreed. “You hit the site. You take one. Two. You leave enough bodies to make the message clear. You make sure the world knows Roman Giorlando’s family isn’t safe in the shadow of his own monument. Then you tell him where to come if he wants to try and fix it.”
“Use the construction site as both the wound and the hook,” Yashida murmured. “He’ll have to show up. So will the Devils. So will the Vipers if they really consider themselves allies. We can build the kill box ahead of time. Rig it up.”
Fiorenzo’s eyes lit up. “We could take his wife,” he said. “She’s always at his side at those charity things. Or one of the sons. Valentino, his eldest, maybe. He’s next in line. Make it personal.”
“No, not his wife,” Nico shot down.
Isabella tilted her head. “Explain.”
Nico swallowed once but didn’t back down.
“Roman’s old world,” Nico said. “He loves his sons, sure. Sees them as extensions of himself. Legacy. One of them disappoints him enough, he can pretend he never existed and pour everything into the others. Wives… he can get another. Might not be the same, but men like him know how to bury that kind of pain.”
He spread his hands.
“But his daughter? That’s different. That’s the soft part.
The one thing men like him spend their whole lives trying to keep clean while the rest of them rolled in the mud.
You hurt his little princess, you don’t just bruise him.
You unmake him. Grab her, and Roman will tear the world apart trying to get her back.
So will his sons, and so will the Devils. ”
The room went still.
I felt Isabella’s gaze on me. I glanced her way. Our eyes met over the polished wood.
Gianna Giorlando.
The little queen of a vineyard on paper. A ghost in Roman’s business life.
Isabella smiled. Slow. Serrated.
“I like the way the boy thinks sometimes,” she said.
I let my own smile follow.
“We’ll need to coordinate with Vladimir,” Yashida said. “Make sure it doesn’t look like a trap.”
“Oh, it won’t,” I said softly. “Our Russian insider will be very convincing when he says the architects need their ‘input.’”
I could already see it.
A half-finished palace on the water. Rebar ribs. Concrete skin. Roman’s wife and daughter walking the echoing halls in hardhats and designer shoes, pointing at fixtures that didn’t exist yet. Vladimir at their side, all apologetic smiles and quiet reassurances.
Then the sound of boots on bare floors. Men stepping out of the shadows that had been planned in advance.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
Yashida inclined his head again. Fiorenzo’s fingers twitched. Nico looked like he’d just been handed a knife and was given permission to use it. Isabella sat back, satisfied.
Outside, the city kept humming, unaware.
“Roman chose Atlantic City and put his back to the ocean,” I stated, looking past them at the city outside. “Let’s see how long he can hold his breath when we drag him under and drown him.”