CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
Zina sat on the edge of the examination table, swinging her legs casually over the side.
She was wearing a soft cotton t-shirt, having just allowed the estate’s physician to clean and bandage the shallow, two-inch slice along her ribs.
She watched Sandro pace, resting her chin in her hand, looking bored by the incident and mildly amused by his meltdown.
"I want the streets of Brera torn apart!" Sandro shouted, pointing a furious finger at Nico. "I want the men who survived interrogated until their bones break. Find out how Vanzetti knew they were there!"
"Sandro," Zina said softly, her voice cutting through the noise.
He didn't hear her, consumed by the terrifying image of her bleeding on a gallery floor. "I want the security detail doubled. No one leaves this estate without a ten-man armored convoy. Do you understand me?"
"Alessandro," Zina tried again, a little louder.
"If that blade had been two inches higher—"
"Sandro, look at me."
Zina slid off the examination table, wincing slightly at the pull on her ribs, and walked directly into the path of the furious Don.
She signaled with a flick of her hand for Nico and the guards to leave.
They didn't hesitate, practically sprinting out of the room and pulling the door shut behind them.
Sandro stopped pacing, his chest heaving, his eyes wild with residual terror and protective rage.
Zina stepped into his space, reaching up to wrap her arms gently around his neck. She pressed her body flush against his, ignoring the slight sting in her side, and looked up into his burning green-grey eyes.
"I am fine," Zina murmured, her voice a soothing, velvety caress. "It is a scratch. I have had worse shaving my legs."
"It isn't funny, Sherezine," Sandro growled, though his hands instantly came up to grip her waist, pulling her closer, terrified to let her go. "They got too close. I failed to protect you."
"You did not fail," Zina corrected, her thumbs smoothing the deep tension lines from his forehead. "You cannot anticipate every desperate rat in the city. And besides, I protected Francesca. Your sister is safe. I am safe. The men who tried to hurt us are currently breathing through tubes."
Sandro closed his eyes, exhaling a long, ragged breath that ruffled the hair at her temples. The sheer tremendous relief of having her in his arms finally began to extinguish the fire of his rage. He rested his forehead against hers, his grip on her waist tightening protectively.
"You are going to give me a heart attack before we even make it to the altar," Sandro whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
Zina smiled, rising onto her toes to press a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. "Then you had better hurry up and marry me, Don Moretti."
He kissed her back, a deep, bruising kiss that tasted of desperate love and gratitude, melting the last of his anger away into the quiet safety of the room.
***
It was almost three weeks later when the desperate rats finally cornered themselves.
The Kazan Capos, starving, paranoid, and running out of places to hide, realized that their window of survival had slammed shut.
The Moretti enforcers were squeezing the city, cutting off their black-market funds, and burning their safe houses.
In a final, suicidal gamble, Kamran Shirazi marshaled the last of their heavily armed mercenaries.
They knew they could not win a prolonged siege against the Palazzo, but they believed that if they struck fast and hard in the dead of night, they could breach the residential wing, grab Reza, and negotiate their way out.
They were catastrophically mistaken.
The attack began at two in the morning. The Capos blew the hinges off the secondary southern gate, pouring into the estate’s outer courtyard with automatic weapons blazing. They expected chaos. They expected sleeping guards and a panicked scramble for defenses.
Instead, the moment they crossed the threshold, the courtyard was flooded with blinding, high-intensity halogen lights.
The gunfire ceased almost immediately, echoing away into the damp night air.
The mercenaries Vanzetti had hired dropped their weapons to the cobblestones as they realized they had walked directly into a steel trap.
Lining the upper balconies, the rooftops, and every conceivable exit were dozens of Moretti enforcers, their laser sights painting red dots across the chests of the intruders.
Kamran, Bogdan, Farid, and Radu stood frozen in the center of the courtyard, the cold realization of their doom washing over them.
The doors of the main palazzo slowly swung open.
Alessandro Moretti stepped out onto the marble portico. He was dressed in a dark suit, looking like a god of war, his presence commanding an ominous silence. Beside him walked Sherezine Kazan, her face a mask of impenetrable ice.
But it was the three figures who walked out behind them that caused the Capos' knees to tremble.
Roxana Kazan descended the marble steps.
The matriarch of the East wore a long, tailored black coat, her posture radiating the chilling authority of an empress holding court.
Flanking her, offering a visual representation of an unbreakable alliance, were Lucia Moretti and the retired Don, Vittorio Moretti.
The Kazan Capos looked at the tableau before them, and the devastating truth of their miscalculation finally clicked into place.
In their wildest, most paranoid nightmares, they had never entertained the thought that the bloodline they had betrayed would not only survive, but would merge with the most powerful dynasty in Europe.
They were not facing a grieving widow and a frightened girl.
They were facing the united wrath of two empires.
"Roxana, please!" Kamran cried out, his voice cracking as he fell to his knees on the cold cobblestones.
The other three Capos immediately followed, throwing themselves onto the ground, begging for their lives.
"We were deceived! Vanzetti lied to us! We thought Emir was going to ruin the syndicate! Please, show us mercy!"
Roxana stopped at the bottom of the steps. She looked down at the four men who had broken bread at her table, the men who had smiled at her sons before leaving them to die.
"Mercy," Roxana repeated, the word falling from her lips like shattered glass. She looked at Kamran, her dark eyes devoid of humanity. "You watched my husband bleed. You let them execute my sons on the marble floor of their own home. And you dare to speak to me of mercy?"
Zina stepped forward, her hand dropping to the pistol holstered at her hip. She wanted to kill them. The violent, agonizing grief that had haunted her for months screamed for blood.
But Roxana reached out, her elegant hand gently covering Zina’s, stopping her from drawing the weapon.
"No, Sherezine," Roxana said quietly, her voice carrying only to her daughter. "You are building a new life. You are going to be a wife. I will not let the blood of these treacherous pigs stain your hands, and I will not let it stain mine. We are Kazans. We do not become butchers."
Roxana turned to Matteo Serra, who was standing nearby. Without a word, she extended her hand. Matteo, understanding the gravitas of the moment, unholstered his suppressed pistol and placed it respectfully into the matriarch's grip.
Roxana stepped toward the kneeling Capos. They wept, pleading with her, raising their hands in desperate defense.
Roxana’s face did not change. She raised the weapon with a steady, practiced hand, angled it downward, and fired four rapid, precision shots.
The suppressed cracks echoed across the courtyard, followed instantly by the agonizing, blood-curdling screams of the four men. Roxana had shot each of them directly through the kneecap, shattering the joints and dropping them writhing into the dirt. They would never walk again.
Roxana clicked the safety on, turning around and handing the weapon back to Matteo. She did not look at the screaming men on the ground. She looked at Alessandro Moretti.
"I have taken my justice," Roxana said, her voice echoing with regal finality. "They violated your borders and attacked your home. Do with the trash what you will."
Roxana turned and walked calmly back up the marble steps, flanked by Lucia and Vittorio, leaving the screaming traitors to the merciless justice of the Don of Milan.
***
Hours later, the dust had settled, and the estate had fallen into a deep, exhausted silence. The courtyard had been washed clean. Ruggero Vanzetti had been dragged from his hiding place earlier that evening and delivered to Nico Barone. The war was officially over.
In the master suite, the lights were dimmed. Sandro sat in the deep, cushioned window seat overlooking the moonlit gardens, his legs stretched out. Zina was curled tightly against his chest, her head resting over his heart, wrapped in a thick cashmere blanket.