Chapter 9
Rome stared at the message until the screen dimmed.
You should’ve left Rico alone.
Unknown number. No trace. Whoever sent it had been watching long enough to know the exact moment he pulled the last wire transfer that proved Rico had been feeding the Russos for years. Long enough to know Demario still hadn’t been told the full scope.
He drove straight to the safe house, tires quiet on the gravel.
Demario was in the study with a half-empty glass of cognac and the same cold expression he’d worn since the night Keisha came home filled with Malik’s cum.
Keisha sat on the couch across from him, eyes down.
The air between them was thick enough to choke on.
Rome dropped his phone on the desk.
“Read it.”
Demario did. His jaw tightened once. “Who?”
“Someone who knew I was digging into Rico before I told you. Someone inside enough to watch my moves in real time.” Rome exhaled.
“Sofia called an hour ago. She’s offering a sit-down.
Johnny’s willing to call a temporary truce if we take Rico off the board together.
Rico’s operation is bigger than the corners we thought he was running.
Cartagena connect. Money moving under both our names. ”
Demario’s eyes lifted slowly. “And you believe her?”
“I she’s not what you think D, plus we found out that Rico was the one who orchestrated that bad drug shipment that had you put down Micheal, she wants him dead more than she wants your head .
And I believe she’s the only one who can walk us into a room with Russo men without it turning into a massacre on the spot. ”
Rome leaned both hands on the desk. “She already has the location of the sit-down. Jersey waterfront. Tonight. Neutral ground. Her people and ours.”
Keisha spoke for the first time, voice quiet but steady.
“Malik told me the rotations of Rico’s shipment landing.
Third Thursday , high tide, south dock behind the old fish processing plant.
Forty keys from a new Cartagena crew. He rotates the drop every six weeks so nobody catches the pattern.
I was the only one he ever told the full schedule to. ”
Demario turned his head toward her like he’d forgotten she was in the room. “And you’re just now deciding to share that?”
She met his eyes. “Because if I don’t, you walk into that warehouse blind and Rico walks away again. I already chose wrong too many times. This is the only way left to choose right.”
Rome watched the two of them. The silence stretched until Demario finally nodded once.
“You drive with us,” he told her. “You stay in the car until I say otherwise. You prove this location is real, you live. You lie, you don’t.”
Keisha didn’t flinch. “It’s real boy.”
Two hours later the three of them sat in a blacked-out SUV half a mile from the waterfront warehouse.
Sofia’s message had been precise: one vehicle, no extra soldiers visible, Demario and Rome only at the table.
Keisha stayed in the back seat with a Glock in her lap .
Now the warehouse loomed ahead, rusted corrugated steel, one hanging bulb visible through the open loading bay, the smell of diesel and salt already drifting through the cracked windows of the SUV.
Demario checked the magazine of his Glock one last time. “Stay in the car until I call,” he told Keisha without looking back. “If this goes sideways, you drive. You don’t look for us. You just go.”
Keisha’s fingers tightened around the pistol. “I’m not running.”
He finally glanced at her in the rearview. Something unreadable moved behind his eyes, anger, possession, the thin edge of the same love that had made him stupid enough to leave witnesses before. Then he stepped out into the night with Rome at his shoulder.
The warehouse on the Jersey waterfront smelled like diesel, salt, and the copper edge of old blood that never quite washed out of concrete.
Demario stood under a single hanging bulb, black hoodie zipped over the Kevlar, Glock heavy against his ribs.
Rome was two steps behind him, tailored suit still smelling of Sofia’s perfume.
Keisha waited in the blacked-out SUV fifty yards out, engine idling, the location Malik had whispered into her ear the only reason any of them were breathing the same air as the Russos tonight.
Sofia Russo walked in first.
Red dress under a long black coat, diamond bracelet catching the light like a threat. Two of her father’s men flanked her, but she didn’t need them. She stopped in the middle of the empty loading bay and looked Demario dead in the eye.
“My father says three conditions,” she said, voice low and even. “One,Rico dies tonight. Two, you never come near a Russo corner again while Johnny’s still breathing. Three, when this is over, the debt for Michael is paid in full.
Demario’s jaw flexed. “And if I say no?”
Sofia’s mouth curved, the same dangerous smile she’d given Rome the night she squirted on his dick against the glass. “Then you walk out of here alone, and the next time we meet it’ll be with your brother’s head in a bag.”
Rome didn’t flinch. Demario almost smiled.
“Deal,” he said. “But Rico’s operation is bigger than the corners.
He’s moving product through three ports, two of them under your family’s noses.
New connect out of Cartagena. Shipment hits tonight, forty keys, pure.
He rotates the drop every six weeks. Malik told her the exact dock and the exact window. ”
Sofia’s eyes cut to the side of the warehouse where Keisha’s silhouette waited in the dark SUV. “She still breathing after everything she did?”
“She’s useful,” Demario answered. “That’s all that matters right now.”
Sofia nodded once. “Then we move. My men take the east approach. Yours take the water. I stay with you. If anyone flinches, I put a bullet in the first King I see.”
Rome’s voice was quiet. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Oh don’t take me too serious baby, I could never kill you and you better thank your dick for that.” she answered, and walked toward the exit like she already owned the night.
The dock was a skeleton of rusted cranes and stacked containers under a moon that refused to hide.
Rico’s crew moved like ants, twelve men, two vans, a refrigerated truck backed up to the water.
Demario watched through the scope from the second-story window of an abandoned shipping office.
Keisha stood beside him, hoodie pulled low, the Glock he’d put in her hand an hour ago still warm from his palm.
“You sure this is the spot?” he asked without looking at her.
“Malik said the new connect only moves on the third Thursday when the tide’s high. He was right about everything else.” Her voice was steady. “Including the fact that Rico’s been selling you out longer than anyone knew.”
Demario’s finger rested against the trigger guard. “You still love that nigga?”
“I loved the idea of him when you were gone,” she said.
Rome’s voice crackled in the earpiece. “East side clear. Sofia’s men are in position. Two minutes to the handoff.”
The refrigerated truck’s rear doors swung open. Rico stepped out first, black hoodie, gold chain, the same easy swagger he’d worn the night Demario first bent him over in the warehouse and taught him what belonging felt like. Behind him, two Colombians unloaded bricks into a waiting van.
Demario lowered the scope. “Go time.”
The first shot came from Sofia’s side, clean, professional, dropping the nearest lookout. Then the night tore open.
Muzzle flashes lit the containers in stuttering white.
Demario was already moving, Keisha on his six, Rome cutting across the open asphalt with two of their remaining soldiers.
Rico’s men returned fire, chaotic and loud.
One of the Colombians went down clutching his throat.
A Russo soldier spun and hit the concrete hard.
Rico saw Demario coming and didn’t run.
He raised the compact MAC-10 and opened up, rounds chewing the air inches from Demario’s head.
Demario dove behind a forklift, returned fire, felt the burn of a round grazing his left arm.
Keisha dropped to a knee beside him, firing controlled pairs the way he’d drilled into her on the range three days ago.
“Rico!” Demario’s voice cut through the gunfire.
“You really thought you could run product through my ports and fuck my woman and walk away clean?”
Rico laughed, wild and high on adrenaline, ducking behind the open truck door.
“I didn’t just run product, D. I ran you.
Every leak. Every hit. Every time you thought the Italians were smarter than they were, it was me.
Malik was just the messenger. I was the one who paid the judge to let you out early so I could watch you burn. ”
The truth landed like a second bullet.
Demario rose, emptying the magazine in controlled bursts that forced Rico deeper into cover. Rome flanked left. Sofia’s men pressed from the right. The van tried to peel out and took three rounds through the windshield. The driver slumped.
Rico broke cover, MAC-10 chattering, sprinting for the water’s edge where a small speedboat waited. Demario chased, boots slamming concrete, shoulder screaming from the old wound. Keisha was right behind him.
Rico spun at the edge of the dock, weapon coming up level with Demario’s chest.
Time slowed the way it always did when death got close enough to taste.
Keisha moved first.
She shoved Demario hard to the side, hard enough that the first burst from Rico’s MAC-10 chewed the air where his heart had been.
The second burst caught her across the upper arm, a white-hot graze that spun her half around.
She didn’t fall. She raised the Glock with both hands, eyes locked on the man who brought all of this chaos into their lives.
and pulled the trigger three times. The first round took Rico in the shoulder, The second punched through his throat and The third opened a neat hole just above his left eye.
Rico staggered backward, MAC-10 clattering to the concrete, and dropped into the black water with a heavy splash that the night swallowed whole.
Silence crashed down in pieces, distant sirens, the wet slap of waves against the pilings, Keisha’s ragged breathing.
Demario caught her before her knees gave out. Blood ran warm down her arm, soaking the sleeve of the hoodie. He pressed his palm over the graze, hard, eyes searching her face.
“You pushed me,” he said, voice rough.
“You were about to take one in the face!.” Her laugh was shaky, edged with pain. “Guess I still love your stupid ass.”
Sofia walked up through the smoke, heels clicking on concrete, Rome at her shoulder. She looked down at the dark water where Rico’s body had disappeared, then at the two of them.
“Debt’s paid,” she said simply. “My father will keep his word. For now.”
Rome’s gaze lingered on Keisha’s bleeding arm, then on his brother’s face. Something unreadable passed between the brothers, old promises, new blood, the knowledge that the dirt had finally climbed high enough to touch them both.
Demario didn’t let go of Keisha. He kept pressure on the wound, forehead pressed to hers while the city lights glittered across the water like nothing had changed.
“I’m never leaving you out of my sight.” he murmured, the raw edge of a man who had watched the only woman he ever loved take a bullet meant for him.
Keisha’s free hand fisted in the front of his hoodie.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered. “Not tonight. Not ever.”
Behind them, the refrigerated truck burned. Somewhere in the distance, Johnny Russo would receive the news that the traitor was dead and the Kings were still breathing. Somewhere else, Malik was already running.
But on the dock, under the cold moon and the smell of gunpowder, Demario held the woman who had chosen him in the only language the streets ever understood, blood for blood, bullet for bullet, and for the first time since the night Rome put a body on the office floor, the war felt like it was actually over.