18. Adriano
Chapter eighteen
Adriano
The Next Day
Dean Rossi was one twisted motherfucker.
I thought his consigliere, Silvio Esposito, was a mere consultant, but no. He’s also a fucking shareholder, right under my nose all along!
After the first botched attempt, where we traced all individuals who fit into the clue Elena gave, I narrowed it down to an Italian who had graduated from Harvard, and we found him.
I sent Francesco to pay him a visit in his exquisite condo perched on a hilltop in Montana, and now, the idiot’s unconscious in my basement.
It took nearly twenty hours, a few broken fingers, and the threat of reporting his sick, illegal immigrant mother to ICE, before he finally agreed to move the money from the Rossis’ offshore accounts to an account we provided.
Dean never trusted digital banking for the real money, so he ran it through an old private banker in Zurich.
The three accounts were numbered accounts, and all that was needed to cash out the money were the secret account numbers themselves, verbal ciphers, and the consigliere’s own voice on a secure line.
A few wire transfers later, and the money is now ours.
The Rossis thought my revenge was complete by reducing their numbers. Heck no. They can always recruit men, but it would take the rest of Enzo’s lifetime to raise the millions of dollars we now own.
I turn the spent brass shell casing Francesco placed on my desk between my fingers, the metal catching the fluorescent lights in my office.
It had been dug out of the marble balustrade at the Rossi mansion when I was leaving, and now Francesco has brought it back, confirming my suspicions.
This isn’t a regular bullet casing; it’s expensive military-grade ammunition. Whoever’s after Elena is rich and has ties to the military. This is getting interesting.
Francesco stands across from me, arms folded behind him. “What did you find on the owners and suppliers of this?”
“These shells were imported recently,” he begins, tapping the rest of the casings on the table.
“They belong to the Marini Syndicate, who have a long-standing feud with the Rossis. Apparently, Enzo Marcini refused the distribution partnership they offered a while back, causing them to lose millions.”
No wonder. Gabriel Marini comes from a long line of military men, and the ammunition from his family is usually snuck in from the military reserves.
“What kind of partnership?”
“Transportation. They wanted to move goods through the Rossis’ docks.”
Still, that problem has nothing to do with Elena. If they wanted revenge so badly, why didn’t they make a move on the key Rossi figure—Enzo? That’s exactly what I'm going to find out from Marini himself.
Snatching up my car keys, I grab my jacket from the headrest of my leather chair.
Any woman, Elena or not, shouldn’t have to live in fear because some bastard couldn’t suck it up.
No wonder Elena was completely silent during the ride to the event yesterday, when she usually can’t stop running that smart mouth.
Francesco continues walking briskly beside me. “The numbers that sent those threats also trace back to burners used and discarded recently by their men.”
Those bastards.
“Alert the men,” I say, heading for the garage. Francesco grabs his walkie-talkie immediately.
“All members of the special unit assemble at the garage now.”
My men are divided into different units so that every duty we have to carry out is going on simultaneously. We may not be in the majority, but I know it’s better to have structure than a massive, chaotic mob.
“Where’s their base?” I growl. I’m finding the Marinis today, and God help me when I do, I’d relish tearing their heads from their shoulders. My pulse quickens with excitement at the thought of blood spurting endlessly from the men who threatened Elena’s life.
“Capo, they’re currently holed up at the warehouse on Seventeenth Avenue. They have a drug packaging routine, and the Don, Gabriel Marini, goes there to supervise himself at noon every day.”
“What time is it now?”
I click the unlock button to my BMW and get into the driver’s seat.
“It’s a few minutes to 1 p.m., Capo.”
“Perfect timing.”
“And Francesco. Let Silvio go.”
He’s a dead man anyway. He basically helped ruin the Rossis. Enzo will decide whether he lives or dies.
***
There are six of us as opposed to the eighteen of them, but we have an advantage: they don't know we're coming.
Moving stealthily, I signal my men toward the entrances. One of them rams his shoulder into the door; the impact alerts the men in the warehouse, but it’s too late for them. Francesco and I aim, dropping five of them on the spot. The rest scatter around, diving behind the wooden crates.
Where’s the fun if they're all going to scurry away like rats fleeing a burning ship?
I holster my gun and slide under one of the tables where one of the cowards dove, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. His eyes flare in terror when they meet my grinning face. My fist collides with his jaw so hard that blood spatters and teeth clatter across the floor.
He grunts, going on all fours to get as far away from me as possible. I grab his leg, dragging him back toward me and ramming my fist into his face again.
Something cracks, the sound sending a thrill of excitement through my stomach as blood pours from his mouth and nose. He reaches for my eyes; anger flares in my chest. I smash his skull into the concrete until it splits open, then slide out from beneath the table, locking onto my next prey.
My men have slaughtered most of the foot soldiers packing the drugs; now I just have to get a hold of Gabriel Marini.
Someone aims at me from the gallery, but I swiftly drag the man in my hold in front of me, using him as a human shield. Francesco sprays the man in the gallery with bullets, sending him crashing over the railing.
I toss the dead man aside and kick down Gabriel’s office door with my boots.
Bullets spray at us from every angle as the door comes down. Francesco steps in front of me, knocking out one of the guards with the butt of his gun and using his dead weight to absorb the incoming rounds while I shoot down as many men as possible.
From the corner of my eye, I see Gabriel slipping away through a back door with two men protecting him.
Running back into the warehouse, I hurry after him through one of the side doors, blocking his path.
“Who the hell are you?” he spits at me. The man is small but well-built, with a protruding stomach. His graying hair is slicked back on top of his head.
“Who I am doesn’t matter.” I cock my gun and aim at the knees of one of the men flanking him while one of my men keeps his gun trained on the other guard.
“What do you want? Money!?”
“Money?” A brash laugh rumbles from my throat. “I’m here for your soul.”
He snatches a gun from the holster on his waist, but I’m faster. I aim at his hand, lodging a bullet directly through his wrist, shattering the bone and painting his brown suit red. He yowls in pain, falling to his knees.
“Why… why are you doing this?” Literal tears seep down his cheeks.
“You ordered the hit on Elena Rossi.” I aim at his thigh this time around. He clatters to the ground completely, his sobs growing louder.
“I’m sorry. I’m… I’m sorry. I just wanted Enzo to lose something dear, the way he made me lose dear profit.”
I shake my head. “Too bad. It shouldn’t have been her.” I want to shatter his brain with a bullet through his skull, but that’d be nothing compared to the fear and torment Elena’s been made to live in.
So, instead, I reach out and grab him by his collar, hoisting him entirely off the floor until his dangling boots scrape the iron wall.
I lean in, my breath hot against his bloody face. “This is for putting fear in her eyes,” I growl, my fingers tightening until his windpipe collapses. “She belongs to me, you piece of shit. You don't even breathe the same air as her, let alone target her life.”
With a vicious snarl, I smash him into the iron wall of the building. I can hear him wheezing as something cracks mercilessly in his body.
Lifting him back to his feet by his hair, I tilt his face up to mine one last time. “And this is for making her bleed,” I hiss, my teeth bared. “Nobody touches my girl and lives to talk about it.”
I slam my boot into his chest. He spirals to the ground again, cracking his head against the concrete.
Satisfaction washes over me. Now Elena can walk with her head held high and her mind at ease.
I whistle for my men. Francesco and another man come running toward me.
“Where are the rest?”
“We lost one man, Capo. And one of us is injured, but he’ll be fine if attended to.”
I was expecting more casualties since only six of us went up against an army three times our number.
“Get him to the car. We leave now.”
I turn toward the spot where my car is parked when my phone begins to vibrate.
“Capo,” the voice calls out as I pick up. It’s Tony, one of the guys I sent to surveil Valente, so I’d know the bastard wouldn’t try to double-cross me.
“Speak.”
“There’s been an incident with Valente.”
My jaw hardens. Valente was my only link to the top of this chain; if anything happens to him, I’m fucking back to square one.
“Go on,” I hiss impatiently.
“He was found dead in his villa less than an hour ago. The ambulance just arrived to pick up his corpse.” How’s that even possible with the level of security he had guarding him?
“Who’s responsible?”
“We don’t know, Capo. We lost visual on him for only a few minutes after he returned from the polo complex, and by the time we breached, he was already cold.”
One of Valente’s own men must have done the job… under someone’s orders.
Questions swirl in my head. Who’s behind this? Valente’s own enemies, or someone else? A few days after our confrontation, the old bastard dies? This is not a coincidence.
“Find out who murdered him,” I say.
“Yes, Capo.”
I end the call, my fist tightening around the phone.
It’s apparent that someone is trying to tie up their loose ends. Which means whoever is responsible for my father’s murder is closer than I think. I just need to find them before they get to any other person involved in this case, like the ex-police commissioner.
The ex-commissioner is the only remaining lead now—the one who began this rat race in the first place.
That fucker better be ready to talk, or I’ll crack his skull open and get whatever information I need, even if I have to carve it out of him.
“Get me everything you can on the ex-police commissioner who struck the deal with Valente,” I bark at Francesco.
“I already dropped it in the office, Capo.”
Good. Francesco may be older than I am, but he knows exactly what to do, when, and how to do it. That’s the major reason I’m keeping him close, besides the fact that my father trusted him.
Later that night, as I settle into my study with a glass of cognac to keep me up, my hand reaches for the dimmed desk lamp, turning it up to review the folders Francesco dropped for my scrutiny.
Some of them contain information on leads we need to follow, like that slimy ex-police commissioner, others are receipts of purchases we made, while the most important document is our certificate of ownership for a waterfront building my father used to own.
My thumb rubs over the watermark, a tight feeling settling in my chest. After the Bellandini massacre, I laid low for some time.
I was supposed to be dead, and I wanted it to remain that way until I was able to restrategize and begin my revenge plan.
During that period, Francesco sold some of our assets to help us survive before he could gain access to my father’s contingency fund.
It was the first step I took once I secured enough money to reset the businesses we lost—buying back all our properties… and then some.
Under the certificate is a list of people scheduled for an interview for the reopening of the Marcodini club.
On the surface, it’ll be an old rusty place being brought back to life, but just like with Father, that’s the route through which all our drug deals will pass.
In no time, I’ll reopen the sister strip club where weapons will be traded and international deals will take place. My father was not the most powerful mafia don, but his business structure carried the family for years.
I intend to build on that same structure and expand it until we’re a fucking empire.