Chapter 8 - The Siege of Blackwood Hall
The security monitors inside the vault flickered, showing black-and-white feeds of the violent battle raging above.
Alina set Mia down on the sofa, wrapping her in a heavy wool blanket. "Stay here, my love. Don't look at the screens. Sing your song. Sing the song Daddy used to hum."
Mia, tears streaming down her chubby cheeks, nodded bravely. She pulled the blanket to her chin and began to whisper the melody of the Brahms lullaby, her voice shaking with every thud that shook the ceiling.
Alina stood before the bank of monitors, her nails digging into the edge of the steel console until her palms bled.
On the foyer camera, Dante and three loyal guards were pinned behind the overturned marble dining table. Muzzle flashes strobed through the darkness like violent lightning. Down the sweeping staircase came a squad of tactical shooters in unmarked body armor.
Leading them was an older man with silver hair, wearing an immaculate camel-hair coat.
Silvano Moretti.
Damon’s uncle. The consigliere who had smiled at Damon at family dinners, who had stood beside him at his father’s funeral, who had orchestrated the murder of Marco Rossi.
Silvano raised a hand. His men ceased firing.
Through the monitor’s audio feed, Silvano’s amplified voice crackled through the estate’s intercom.
"Damon!" the old man called out, his tone casual, almost affectionate. "Come out, nephew! You’re burning down your own house for the ghost of a dead enforcer and a woman who scrubbed your floors! It’s undignified!"
The camera overlooking the mezzanine showed a shadow detach itself from the dark alcove near the library.
Damon stepped into the open.
He didn't take cover. He stood at the top of the grand staircase, illuminated by the flashing red emergency lights, holding his weapon at his side.
"You should have died at Pier 42, Uncle," Damon’s voice rang out, cold as deep-sea water.
Silvano chuckled, though his eyes darted nervously toward his armed mercenaries. "Marco was an obstacle, Damon. He was a sentimental fool, just like you. The Torneros offered us twenty million a year to look the other way at the docks! And Marco wanted to play the righteous crusader because a few junkies were dying in the North End! He had to go."
"And the fire?" Damon asked, his voice chillingly devoid of emotion. "You chained the doors from the outside. You knew I was on my way to meet him."
A flicker of genuine regret crossed Silvano’s weathered face. "That was an unfortunate necessity. You were becoming unpredictable, Damon. You wanted to clean up the business. You wanted to go legitimate. There is no legitimate for people like us! We are wolves! We eat, or we are eaten!"
Silvano leveled his pistol toward the mezzanine.
"Where is the girl, Damon? Give me the child and the drive Marco left behind, and I will let you walk away with your life. You can take your millions and retire to Sicily. Otherwise, I kill you, I kill the whore, and I put Marco’s bastard in the harbor where her father belongs."
Damon’s response was not a word.
May you like
It was a bullet.
***
