28. Enzo
Enzo
The emergency strobe lights flash in erratic, blinding bursts, casting the settling dust in harsh flashes of white and crimson. Screams tear through the haze as the older Commission bosses realize their untouchable status just expired in a hail of automatic gunfire.
They brought an army to a boardroom
I roll off Elena, keeping my hand securely on her shoulder to ensure she stays pinned behind the overturned table.
I draw my customized Glock, the polymer grip familiar and reassuring in my palm. The tailored charcoal suit I wore to manipulate offshore accounts and dictate legal precedents is now covered in gray soot.
Niccolò and Alessio are already moving. We do not require verbal commands to coordinate our counter-offensive. We spent our youth surviving horrors that bonded our instincts into a cohesive, unstoppable weapon.
Alessio pops up from the left flank, his customized pistol spitting a relentless stream of hollow-point rounds. He draws the incoming fire, laughing a harsh, grating sound that cuts through the chaos. Two Russian mercenaries turn their assault rifles toward him, taking the bait.
I shift to the right, using the shattered remnants of a leather chair for cover.
I acquire the first target in my sights, a mercenary reloading his weapon near the blown-out elevator bank.
I squeeze the trigger twice. The rounds strike him directly in the throat, sending a spray of red across the ruined plaster before he crashes to the floor.
Niccolò vaults over the edge of our makeshift barricade, a suppressed rifle in his hands. He advances on a cluster of Bratva soldiers pinned near the service doors with the grace of a hunting panther.
"Enzo, crossfire!" Niccolò shouts over the din of the shootout.
I break cover, sliding across the blood-slicked carpet to position myself adjacent to my older brother.
We form an interlocking grid of suppressing fire, trapping the advancing Russians in a kill zone.
Alessio rushes the center, sliding on his knees under a barrage of bullets, and drives a combat knife upward into the gut of a Russian attempting to throw a flashbang.
The explosive drops from the mercenary's hand, rolling harmlessly into a corner before Alessio kicks it down an open elevator shaft.
The muffled detonation shakes the floorboards beneath our boots.
A mercenary steps out from an alcove, aiming a shotgun directly at my blind spot.
Before I can pivot, a sharp crack rings out from behind our barricade.
The Russian’s shoulder jerks backward, his weapon discharging harmlessly into the ceiling.
Elena stands her ground behind the mahogany wood, smoke curling from the barrel of her derringer.
I offer her a fraction of a nod before I turn my attention back to the slaughter. We push the Russians back, step by step, forcing them into a bottleneck near the secondary exit corridors.
Alessio grabs a wounded mercenary by the tactical vest, hauling him up to use as a human shield as another volley of rounds tears through the smoke. "Where is the Pakhan?" Alessio roars, driving his elbow into the man's jaw.
The dying Russian spits blood, pointing a shaking finger toward the service hallway leading to the parking garage.
Through the dissipating gray smoke, I catch a glimpse of the new Volkov leader.
The Pakhan wears a reinforced tactical rig over a tailored suit, his face contorted in a mask of furious desperation as he realizes his hit squad is being systematically dismantled.
He thought he could corner the Severato brothers in a boardroom.
He misjudged the predators he decided to hunt.
He turns on his heel, shoving one of his own men into Niccolò’s line of fire to buy himself the necessary seconds to escape through the service doors.
"Hold the room!" I command, slapping a fresh magazine into my weapon. "I have the Pakhan!"
"Bring his head back, brother," Niccolò replies, firing a three-round burst into the final cluster of Bratva soldiers.
I sprint across the ruined conference room, my boots crunching over shattered glass and splintered wood. I push through the swinging service doors, entering a narrow, dimly lit corridor. The fluorescent tubes overhead flicker erratically, damaged by the concussive force of the explosives.
I track the smear of muddy footprints and the frantic, retreating sounds of the Pakhan's boots against the concrete.
The hallway twists through the subterranean infrastructure of the hotel, bypassing the laundry facilities and industrial kitchens.
He is trying to reach the lower loading docks, hoping to find an extraction vehicle.
I increase my pace when a Russian straggler attempts to block my path near the service elevators, raising a submachine gun.
I don't break my stride. I fire a single round into his kneecap, dropping him to the concrete, and follow it up with a finishing shot to the chest as I pass his collapsing form.
The chase leads me deeper into the bowels of the building. I turn the final corner, stepping out onto the expansive concrete loading dock. The rain is pouring down outside, a torrential deluge that washes the grime into the storm drains.
A black SUV idles near the edge of the ramp, the driver frantic as he revs the engine. The Volkov Pakhan is sprinting toward the open passenger door, his breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps.
I raise my Glock, stabilizing my grip with both hands.
I aim for the front left tire of the extraction vehicle and fire.
The rubber explodes with a loud pop, the SUV dropping violently onto its rim.
The driver curses, slamming his foot on the accelerator, but the ruined tire catches on the concrete, spinning the heavy vehicle sideways into a massive steel dumpster.
The collision crumples the front fender, trapping the SUV against the brick wall.
The Pakhan freezes, realizing his escape route just evaporated into the coastal storm.
He spins around, raising a handgun in my direction, but his hands are shaking with panic.
I don't give him the opportunity to find his aim.
I fire a round that strikes him directly in the right shoulder.
His weapon clatters to the wet concrete as he cries out, stumbling backward until his spine hits the corrugated metal of a closed loading bay door.
I close the distance between us, the rain soaking my hair and washing the plaster dust from my suit. I kick his discarded firearm into the darkness, removing the final variable from the equation.
He clutches his bleeding shoulder, staring up at me with a mixture of hatred and terror. The arrogance that fueled his suicidal assault on the tribunal has been replaced by the creeping reality of his own demise.
"You think this ends here?" the Pakhan spits, his thick accent distorted by pain. "You kill me, and another will rise. The Bratva will never stop hunting you. You stole our ports. You crippled our operations. We will burn your empire down."
"Your empire is a myth," I inform him, stopping just a few feet away.
"You operate on fractured loyalties and outsourced mercenaries.
You walked into a room containing the heads of the most powerful syndicates on the eastern seaboard, assuming chaos would equate to victory.
You lack the discipline required to rule. "
I raise my weapon, aiming the tritium sights directly at the center of his forehead.
"The Volkov name dies tonight," I state. "You are the last mistake your family will ever make."
He opens his mouth to deliver a final curse, but I pull the trigger.
The hollow-point round enters his skull with a sickening crunch. His head snaps back against the corrugated metal door, a spray of crimson painting the rusted steel before his lifeless body slumps forward onto the wet pavement.
The threat is permanently neutralized. The Bratva is headless, their ranks decimated, their finances draining into blind trusts controlled by the woman I left upstairs.
I lower my gun, engaging the safety as I stare down at the dead man. The rain washes the blood into a pink stream that spirals toward the gutters.
The Russian ranks will descend into anarchy by morning, I reason, my mind already calculating the shifting geopolitical landscape.
They relied on this man to reunite their fractured cells.
Without a Pakhan, the lieutenants will turn their weapons on each other, fighting for scraps in a power vacuum they cannot possibly fill.
A new strategic opportunity unfolds in the forefront of my thoughts.
The Volkovs controlled significant smuggling routes across Eastern Europe, networks that are now left unguarded.
With Elena consolidating the Mediterranean shipping lanes through Palermo, the Severato syndicate possesses the logistical infrastructure to absorb those orphaned Russian territories.
We can stretch our reach far beyond the Atlantic, establishing a global monopoly that no rival family could ever hope to challenge.
I turn my back on the corpse, wiping the rain from my face. I holster my weapon and step back into the corridor, to return to my Queen.