Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
After several days, Frankie had put together the best team possible to satisfy Enzo and set themselves up for success.
Frankie had two goals in mind. First, prove his worth to Enzo by killing everyone on the estate except for Alessia, and burning the house to the ground.
Second, strip away any support Alessia had and crush her firmly under his control.
She needed to learn who ruled her world from now on.
Frankie suspected Enzo didn’t care one way or another about his sister, but to Frankie, she was his best shot to move up in the organization.
By “rescuing” her from the group that supposedly had kidnapped her, Frankie could prove he had the connections Enzo needed.
Ultimately, Frankie had no intention of tying his fate to a hothead like Enzo.
He would replace him. Frankie needed to break out and gain the respect of the men.
Tonight’s show of power, along with marrying into the Costa family, would be his ticket upward.
The twelve guys from around the country he’d enlisted were the best mercenaries in his contacts.
Frankie hated to blow all the favors he had gathered from dangerous people to deal with Enzo’s problems, but losing to the Nightfall crew wasn’t an option.
The team was tough, well-trained, and always ready for any dangerous assignment that came their way.
He looked around the room as the crew did their last-minute weapon checks.
Each man carried a Glock 22 loaded with 40-caliber hollow-point rounds.
Additionally, four men on the team carried a Benelli M4 12-gauge shotgun in case things got out of hand.
Frankie wasn’t expecting that the fight would last long, but they had already lost a lot of people in his attempts to bring this Nightfall place to heel, and he wasn’t taking any chances.
Besides, this time they weren’t trying to assault the bar again.
That had already proven itself to be a losing proposition. This was one man in a private house.
Granted, Frankie’s investigations had determined the estate contained a vast house with a smaller guesthouse on a ten-acre densely wooded lot.
His people had done what they could to scout the area and locate construction details from the local zoning and tax boards.
The first obstacle was a ten-foot-high stone wall that surrounded the property, making the stout metal gate the only direct entry point.
On the grounds, he expected a dozen staff members who lived on the property to keep the place going and the six male visitors who had arrived a couple of days ago, staying in the guesthouse.
Seemingly on vacation, they hiked and fished leisurely.
Frankie wasn’t concerned with his guys and the firepower they were packing. He had chosen three heavily armored Chevy Suburban SUVs as the transport for the crew tonight. They had plenty of room and were perfect to bust through that gate and make their grand appearance.
“Let’s go, boys!” he said to the group. They all piled into the SUVs and drove to the front of the house to pick up Enzo. Go time had arrived.
The three SUVs made their way silently through the town. Reaching the target location, they abandoned the sedate procession. The driver of the lead vehicle announced to everyone in the cab, “Here we go!” as he busted through the gate with a thunderous crash. The other two SUVs trailed close behind.
The sound of popping and ripping rubber filled the lead vehicle as a retractable tire-shredder plate came out of the ground as they entered the tree-lined drive.
The other SUVs swerved to avoid the hazard with squealing brake pads.
Unfortunately, in such a close formation, the second SUV crashed into the rear bumper of the first, and the third swerved into the ditch to avoid the pileup.
Airbags deployed with a whoosh, protecting those inside from serious injuries but tossing them around and blocking their view.
Frankie threw himself out of the vehicle and scanned the grounds, looking for a response to the racket.
Quickly, everyone joined him. One man had a broken arm cradled against his body.
Another slammed his shoulder against an SUV to shove it back into place.
Both could still shoot. The rest were no worse for wear, but everyone was furious.
Frankie heard a groan and realized who was missing. He ran to the SUV stuck in the ditch to check on Enzo. He spotted Enzo crawling out of the SUV. “Boss! You okay?”
Enzo nodded and brushed the dust away from the airbag with a grimace of disgust as he scanned the pile of broken SUVs scattered across the pavement.
Glaring at Frankie, he demanded, “Who the fuck has a tire-shredder plate installed in the middle of their goddamned driveway? Who the fuck are these guys?”
Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know, Boss, but now I’m even more pissed off.” He looked over the rest of the crew as they all gave him a thumb’s up sign to show they were still in the fight. “It’s a short distance to the house. We can do what we came here to do.”
Enzo nodded. “Oh, hell yeah! I’ve had enough of these people. Let’s get this done. We can call back to the house for a ride after we’re finished.”
The group plunged into shadows cast by the tree branches extending over the road and blotting out the moon. Everyone pulled out their phones and turned on the flashlights as they proceeded along the driveway. They could see the lights from the house ahead but still had some distance to go.
One man suddenly stopped where he was and swung his beam off to one side. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Frankie snapped. “Are you getting spooked?
The man kept slowly panning his improvised flashlight from left to right across the bushes along the road. “I heard something.”
Before Frankie could tell the man to shut up, a low rumble came from one side of the road. The growl was a deep, menacing sound that spoke directly to some primal instinct within Frankie. This wasn’t good.
Instantly Frankie’s flashlight was up and sweeping the bushes as well.
As he passed some of the dense foliage, two flashes of light reflected at him.
He thought they were small circles of yellowish green, but they vanished in an instant.
He spotted them one moment and then they were gone. What the hell?
That was when they all heard it. From where the SUVs lay in broken heaps, came a howl.
A long, keening canine call. Most of them had heard such a noise before on nature shows or at the movies, but this was different.
Already amped up from the crash and on edge from the job they were here to do, the team appeared jumpier. That howl sounded extremely loud.
“They’ve got dogs,” one mercenary warned the crew.
Frankie had opened his mouth to say something when a clattering of a gun hitting the pavement behind them rang out. They all swung around at the noise.
Frankie yelled, “Goddamn it! Can’t you keep a hold on your gun back there? What the…” He didn’t finish the curse. No one stood behind them. The man tasked with guarding their rear flank had disappeared.
Again, a howl sounded from down the road. The menacing sound was closer. Another clatter followed from the front of the line. Like toy soldiers being yanked around, the group pivoted to find another man gone and his gun on the pavement.
“Fuck this!” One of the other men yelled and started firing his shotgun into the bushes. Some others fired as well, desperate to do something. Frankie could sense their panic oozing into the air. He struggled to focus everywhere at the same time.
“Stop shooting, you morons! You’re wasting ammo!” Enzo yelled.
Silence returned, other than the ringing in Frankie’s ears from the numerous gunshots. Frankie quickly counted the men and came up with eleven, including himself and Enzo. This wasn’t good. “Boss, we need to get to the house now. We can’t stay out in the open here. Everyone, double-time it. Move!”
The mournful canine calls sounded around them as every man broke out in a dead run for the house.
Frankie’s heart pounded inside his chest. Struggling to keep his panic controlled, his blood ran like ice water through his veins.
His plans for revenge and mayhem were abandoned as each man sprinted toward what they thought of as safety from whatever hunted them.
The lights ahead promised at least a view of their foes.
Frankie pulled Enzo along with him as they raced together into the courtyard at the entrance of the house.
Enzo dropped to his knees, out of breath, as Frankie turned to check on the rest of his men, hoping to salvage something from this clusterfuck of an attack.
No one stood behind them. Absolute silence filled the night.
Gone. They’re all gone?
“Marcus told us you wouldn’t stop, Enzo.
He said you weren’t the kind of man to leave Nightfall alone.
” Titus spoke calmly from his position at the top of the stairs.
He stared hard at Frankie and Enzo, unable to decipher who he hated more—the man who’d wanted to subjugate his mate or the brother who’d thrown her away.
Frankie drew his gun and pointed the barrel at Titus.
He was too slow. Titus had already moved.
Looming in front of Frankie, Titus caged his fury, promising himself the man would pay soon.
Titus wrenched the gun from Frankie’s hand and bent the barrel before his would-be shooter’s eyes before throwing the weapon into the darkness.
Titus grabbed the front of Frankie’s shirt and tossed him onto the stairs as he focused on Enzo.