Chapter Seventeen
Romeo
I thought I was imagining things when I heard her whisper in the darkness, a figment born of desperation. But Tano had stiffened beside me, indicating he’d heard her too. “Vittoria?” I dared speak aloud, and held my breath.
“Oh, thank God!” She rose out of the tall grass, limping as she ran as fast as she could right into my arms.
Thank fuck!
She was shaking, terrified, and covered in cuts and bruises. Whatever she’d endured, escaping hadn’t been easy. Blood stained her clothing in a dozen places, and all I could see was red.
For one terrifying second, I couldn’t breathe.
All the anger, the planning, the need for revenge vanished beneath a single crushing realization.
She was alive.
Not a body in a shallow grave.
Not another name on a list of people I had failed to protect.
Alive and trembling in my arms. Breathing. Mine. I buried my face in her hair and closed my eyes.
I had been seconds away from losing the only thing in my life that truly mattered.
Reluctantly, I handed her over to Tano, unwilling to let her go so soon.
I wanted to carry her home and show her how much she meant to me.
But now was not the time. Later, after I exterminated the vermin who questioned my rule and stole my woman.
A small group of us would go through the back and eliminate our enemies in silence. The rest would sneak around and wait for our signal before they opened fire on those posted outside waiting to pick us off, one by one.
Paulo cut off the padlock and pushed the door open. The stench of old blood hit us immediately. I hated that Vittoria had been stuck here, alone and afraid.
The six of us split into two groups of three, one on either side of the building.
It was dark and too quiet. Stealthily, we moved forward.
I went first while they covered my back, then once they fell in behind me again, I moved forward, and on it went until we made it through the maze of rooms and halls and into a wide-open space.
I heard the sounds of chuckling up ahead and scraping like someone was pulling metal across the concrete. I held up my hand and we moved into position, but before we could advance, there was a loud bang from the opposite side of the structure.
Cazzo!
We moved back into the shadows as seven men raced past us in the direction of the noise, but came back after just a glance and some low muttering.
Clearly, they wanted no part of what was happening in that room, but at least some of them found it amusing.
As they passed us for a second time, we took them down with our knives.
So swift and silent that the last man was in Hell before he realized the others were dead.
One of them was Carlo, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take particular pleasure in killing the man who had so betrayed my family.
Peering around the doorway from where they’d exited. I saw a man beaten and secured with chains. The sounds we’d heard were from a winch pulling the man along the floor. It was Don Calogerà.
His eyes found mine, filled with hate.
“You,” he sneered. “Why am I not surprised?”
I pressed the button on the winch and Santo was pulled into the air where he dangled looking like food for the machine. “Your daughter is safe. She managed to outmaneuver that animal you call a son.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do with me?”
“What I should do is shoot you between the eyes and put you out of your misery. But what I will do is keep you alive until the council decides your fate.” Killing one of our own, while not unusual, had to be sanctioned, or else the resulting blood feud could drag in other allies and enemies and destabilize every family’s operation.
I was within my right to kill the man who had abducted my wife and tried to kill me, but not without the council’s blessing.
He needed to stand trial before his peers, and given that his unsanctioned vendetta against my family had affected everyone whose shipments Don Calogerà had plundered, I had no doubt as to the decision by the council, and that his execution would be mine to carry out.
I saw the calculation in the old man’s eyes. “There is an army outside, Vitale,” he said. “You’ll never get out of here alive. Not unless you let me talk to them.”
My men stepped up at once. “Boss—“
I held up my hand indicating silence. I wasn’t a fool, there was no way I could trust this guy.
“It looks to me like your men aren’t listening to you anymore, Santo. I think I’ll take my chances.”
I turned to leave.
“You think your men are any more loyal to you, Don Vitale? I’ve been inside your organization for years. Who is loyal, who isn’t… meh, who knows, eh? You haven’t brought an army to take me tonight. You’ve brought your back-up.”
He was trying to screw with my head, and it was working. He was right about one thing, he had infiltrated my organization and with relative ease. When this fiasco was over, that would be the first thing I would fix.
“Paulo, take him down, but keep him restrained. I don’t want this piece of shit getting any ideas.”
Matteo helped, and he was down in seconds. “Let’s go. One sound from you, old man, and I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
We’d been using our blades to keep the advantage of surprise and I wanted to believe that was why we hadn’t heard gunfire yet, but my gut told another story. We worked our way back toward the rear entrance. The two men we’d left to cover our backs were gone.
“I told you, Vitale,” Santo said with a laugh. “Your men aren’t trustworthy.”
I pulled out my phone and texted Massimo. “Get here now, we’ve been played.”
Shots from outside.
“I have your brother, Romeo!” Leo called. “I’ll trade your brother for my sister.”
Our enemies didn’t know Vittoria was already gone, whisked off to safety.
“It’s a trick. Don’t trade, offer me instead.” Don Calogerà insisted.
“As if! This is a perfect opportunity for you to get rescued and shoot my brother,” I responded.
My phone vibrated with a message from Vito. His team had gone through to the front first and set themselves up where they could hide amongst the tall grass. Being our sharpshooters, I wanted them to cover us from a distance.
“Boss, it’s Vito, we’re in position. Say when.”
“Run, Leonardo!” Santo shouted.
Paulo rammed the handle of his gun into Santo’s face. He crumpled to the ground, blood gushing from his broken nose.
“Now!” I typed.
A rapid exchange of gunfire ensued.
Santo managed to smirk at me from his position on the ground.
“I’d kill you, old man, but I want to see your face when your beloved Leonardo is executed.”
Santo’s eyes held nothing but malice, but I had no time to spare for that garbage. I left Paulo and Matteo behind to guard him and moved off into the dark, staying in the shadows as I crept around the east side of the building.
I heard a click then. “Got you, Vitale. Move and you die. Drop your gun.”
Leo materialized out of the darkness. He was alone. Either he didn’t believe in backup, or he was arrogant enough to think he didn’t need it. “Doesn’t look like you have my brother,” I said calmly, setting my gun on the ground.
Leo smirked. “No, but you don’t have my sister either, so I guess we’re even.”
He stepped closer to kick my gun away, and I lunged, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing down hard on his wind pipe. Leo dropped his weapon to fight me but the safety was off and he got out a shot before he dropped it.
Bang! The world collided as we fell to the ground.
“Let’s finish this, Vitale.” The shot had ricocheted off the sheet metal beside us and torn through Leo’s shoulder.
Rolling on top of him, I pressed my thumb into the bullet wound, immobilizing his arm while punching him with my free hand.
I’d learned a long time ago that hate was a hard thing to kill. Determination even harder, and the man beneath me had both. He was completely unhinged. Crazy didn’t begin to describe what I saw in those black eyes.
He reached up a hand and squeezed my throat, compressing my wind pipe. He was strong and we were evenly matched. I moved my thumb from the hole in his shoulder to pry his fingers off my throat.
Using the distraction, Leo surged his body, dislodging me onto the damp grass. He crawled for the gun, but I threw myself on top of him. Gripping his head between my hands, I twisted sharply and felt his neck break.
“That’s for my wife, you son of a bitch!” I picked up the gun and shot him in the head. “And that one’s for my brother.” I was about to shoot him again when Massimo ran into view with two of our soldiers.
“Are you okay, boss?”
I handed him the gun. “Never better. I'll live. Where's Vinny?”
“On his way to the house. Tano can look him over when he gets there, but Vinny says he’s fine, other than a beat-down.”
“Vinny would say that after being beheaded.”
“True, but Gio says it too and I’m inclined to believe him.”
That was a relief.
“Glad this piece of shit is dead.” He toed the dead body. “What about Santo?”
“Mateo and Paulo have him for now. We’ll let the council know what’s happened here and who’s really been behind the disruption to their shipments.”
Simo holstered his gun. “So that’s it then. It’s over.”
“Unless some low-level minchione decides to take a run for the throne. But once the old man’s dead, Vittoria legally inherits everything. I will ask the council to allow me to merge what is hers with mine, effectively creating ours. And I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t.”
Paulo and Matteo came around the corner with Santo sequestered between them. “Head home to your wife, boss, we got this.”
Simo looked at me for the final decision before nodding his head.
“Put the bodies in the slaughterhouse and burn it all to the ground. I want no trace of Calogerà left. Then take our soldiers and clean out the vipers’ nest. They can work for us or die.”
I patted Simo on the shoulder as I passed to get into the car.
“Good work, fratello.” Simo would put Santo in his trunk and then into a cozy cell back at chez Vitale.
I left the battlefield desperate to get home to my regina.
For the first time in my thirty-seven years, I intended to tell another person exactly how much they meant to me.