"You..." he chokes out, his chest heaving irregularly.
I walk over to him, my boots clicking rhythmically against the floor. I look down at the boy who thought I needed saving. I look at the traitor who tried to put my husband in the ground.
I feel absolutely no remorse.
"I pass judgment on those who betray my family," I tell him, my voice completely devoid of sympathy.
I aim the gun at his head.
I don't blink as I squeeze the trigger a second time.
The body slumps entirely. The room goes quiet, save for the hum of the computer monitors and the erratic pounding of my own heart.
I lower the gun. I take a deep breath, the tension leaving my shoulders. The girl who used to hide in the shadows of the Genovese estate is gone forever, buried alongside the childhood crush bleeding out on my floor.
I turn my back on the corpse and walk over to the mahogany desk. I pick up the radio receiver and press the button to connect to the internal security channel.
"Luca," I say smoothly. "Come back to the study and clean up this mess. The rat is dead."
I set the radio down, looking up at the glowing green dots on the monitor. They are deep inside Holding Bay Four now. The trap has been sprung.
I did my part, Cassio,I think, touching the cold steel of the gun against my thigh.Now finish yours, and come home to me.
32
Cassio
The freezing saltwater sprays across my face, stinging my eyes, but I don’t blink. I stand at the bow of the tactical Zodiac, the heavy vibration of the outboard motor humming through the rubber floorboards into the soles of my boots. Beside me, Matteo checks the magazine of his M4 for the third time. Behind us, two more boats packed with Orlando’s heavily armed Capos cut through the churning black waves of the bay.
I glance at the luminescent dial of my watch. 2:57 AM.
We are sitting right in the inlet of Holding Bay Four, hidden in the shadows of a massive, rusted cargo crane. Above us, the security cameras sweep the perimeter.
Wait for it,my wife’s voice echoes in my head.2:58. The shift changes.
I picture Noemi sitting in my study, tracing the lines of the port map with her manicured fingernail. She handed me the keys to this fortress on a silver platter. She saw the blind spot the seasoned veterans completely missed. My chest aches, a sharp grinding pressure against my ribs where the bullet tore through me, but a vicious, triumphant smirk pulls at my lips anyway. She isn't just waiting for me to come home, she orchestrated the slaughter I am about to unleash.
The second hand ticks past twelve. 2:58 AM.
The automated floodlights on the eastern dock flicker and reset. The camera lenses swivel smoothly toward the city streets, leaving the water entirely unmonitored.
"Go," I bark into the radio.
The engines roar. The three Zodiacs surge forward, slicing through the freezing water, straight into the belly of the beast.
A mile away, at the main gates of Pier Seven, Dante’s decoy convoy is putting on a hell of a show. I can hear the distant, continuous crack of automatic gunfire and the concussive thump of grenades. The night sky over the street entrance is lit up with orange flames. Just as Noemi predicted, the Bratva committed its entire force to the bottleneck. They are standing behind their reinforced shipping containers, staring down the avenue,expecting the Vellutini empire to break itself against their barricades.
They never look behind them.
The nose of my boat slams into the concrete piling of the dock. I don't wait for Matteo to secure the line. I grab the rusted metal rung of the ladder with my good left hand and haul myself up, my combat boots hitting the asphalt.
Thirty men swarm up onto the pier right behind me, moving with silent, deadly precision. We spread out, melting into the labyrinth of towering steel cargo containers.
Fifty yards ahead, the rear flank of the Russian army is completely exposed. They are clustered around crates of ammunition, shouting in Russian, firing blindly toward the street. They are so distracted by the noise of the decoy that they don't even hear us approaching.
I raise my M4, bracing the stock awkwardly against my uninjured left shoulder. I line the sights up on the back of a mercenary manning a heavy machine gun.
"Burn them," I order.