Chapter 7 - The New PatriarchThe flashlight beam blinded me momentarily as three armed estate guards rounded the corner of the drainage junction, weapons raised and ready to fire.
“Drop the—!”
Before the lead guard could finish his command, three suppressed coughs from my Glock shattered the damp air. All three men dropped instantly into the shallow muddy water, neutralized with clinical, terrifying precision.
From deeper behind them in the tunnel, the sound of slow, heavy clapping echoed off the brick walls.
Marcus stepped out from the shadows, his hands raised mockingly in the air, a cold, cynical smile playing across his lips.
“Impressive, Boss,” Marcus said smoothly, taking another step forward. “Even cornered, starving, and dragging a half-dead woman and a newborn, you still manage to bite like a cornered wolf. But it's over. The entire eastern perimeter is locked down. Your mother is already packing her bags for Zurich, taking full control of the syndicate's European accounts. You can't fight the whole family.”
“I'm not fighting the family, Marcus,” I said, my voice dropping into a register so cold and dead it made him instinctively halt his advance. “I am executing traitors.”
Before Marcus could raise his own weapon, a sudden, blinding flash of headlights illuminated the far end of the tunnel behind him.
A reinforced black armored SUV—belonging to our loyal Sicilian allies whom I had secretly contacted via an encrypted satellite relay right before smashing into the panic room—burst through the brick-and-mortar maintenance bulkhead at the end of the tunnel, shattering the wall in a roar of screaming metal and rubber.
The heavy doors flew open instantly. Five heavily armed, loyal capos from the old guard spilled out into the tunnel, guns drawn, surrounding Marcus and cutting off all routes of escape.
Marcus’s face drained of color in a single microsecond. He looked down at my gun, still pointed squarely at the center of his chest.
“Dante... wait... I was just following orders from the matriarch—!” he stammered, raising his hands in frantic surrender.
“You swore an oath to the bloodline, not to a tyrant,” I said quietly.
I didn't pull the trigger. Instead, I holstered my weapon, walked past the trembling traitor without sparing him another glance, and scooped Grace into my arms once more, cradling my newborn son securely against my chest with my other arm.
“Take him to the tribunal cells,” I instructed the Sicilian capos as I walked past them toward the armored vehicle. “Let the council decide what happens to men who break their oaths.”
“Yes, Boss!” the capos barked in unison, immediately tackling Marcus to the concrete floor.
Minutes later, the armored SUV roared out of the subterranean tunnels into the blinding gray light of the Chicago morning. The rain was finally beginning to clear, parting to reveal a brilliant stripe of golden sunlight breaking over the jagged Manhattan skyline.
In the backseat of the vehicle, Grace stirred slowly, her eyelids fluttering open as she felt the smooth leather seats and the gentle hum of the engine. She looked up at me, panic instantly flashing in her eyes before she felt the warm, steady weight of our baby resting safely against her chest.
“Dante...?” she whispered, tears spilling over her lashes. “Are we... are we safe?”
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I pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, wrapping my arm securely around both of them as the vehicle sped away from the dark shadows of the Rossi estate toward a brand-new dawn.
“We are more than safe, cara,” I murmured, looking out the tinted window as the iron gates of the estate faded forever in the rearview mirror. “The past is buried. And from this day forward... nobody will ever touch you again.”
