Chapter 8 - Blood on the Marble
The sub-basement was thick with the smell of cordite, blood, and ozone.
Moving through the narrow, unlit maintenance corridors beneath the estate, I guided Dante with silent hand signals. Every pipe, every rusty iron grate was familiar to me. Behind us, three of Dante’s elite personal guards trailed in a tactical wedge formation, their weapons raised.
Through a heavy steel ventilation grate above the old barrel room, we looked down into the staging area.
Ten heavily armed men wearing tactical gear with Falcone crests were clearing the corridor. Julian Sterling was there, clutching a bloodied arm, his designer shirt ripped to shreds. Beside him, Camila was huddled behind a stack of crates, sobbing hysterically while clutching a diamond necklace she had looted from the estate office on their way out.
Standing in the center of the room was Luca Falcone, the ruthless underboss of the rival syndicate.
“Hurry up, you idiot!” Falcone barked at Julian, who was desperately punching codes into the heavy vault door that housed Dante’s offshore cryptocurrency keys. “We have four minutes before Moretti’s exterior patrols breach the gates!”
“The code was changed!” Julian cried in terror, his fingers trembling on the digital pad. “Dante changed the encryption after the gala!”
Luca Falcone let out a curse and drew his sidearm, pressing the barrel against Julian’s temple. “Then you’re useless to me, Sterling. And so is your pathetic sister.”
“Wait! Please!” Camila screamed, crawling forward and grabbing Falcone’s combat boots. “Take me with you! I know the locations of Dante’s private safehouses in Miami! I know the bank accounts!”
From our position above the grate, Dante’s grip on his weapon tightened until his knuckles were white. He looked at me, giving a three-finger countdown with his left hand.
Three.
Two.
One.
Dante kicked the iron grate out with a thunderous crash, dropping ten feet into the center of the barrel room like an avenging demon. His suppressed pistol fired three times before his boots even hit the concrete floor.
Three Falcone mercenaries collapsed instantly, dead before they hit the ground.
“Dante!” Camila shrieked, scrambling backward into the shadows.
“Ambush!” Luca Falcone roared, diving behind a row of heavy oak wine casks as gunfire erupted, shattering wood and sending streams of red wine spraying across the floor like fresh blood.
Dante’s guards dropped from the ceiling behind him, engaging the remaining mercenaries in a ferocious, close-quarters firefight. The enclosed space was deafening, muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness in staccato bursts of orange and white.
I scrambled down the service ladder at the edge of the room, keeping low behind the reinforced brick pillars.
Across the room, Julian Sterling saw Dante advancing relentlessly toward Luca Falcone. Realizing his sister and his allies were falling, Julian’s eyes darted frantically around the room until they locked onto me.
His face contorted with a mixture of terror and venomous hatred. “It’s your fault!” he screamed, lunging across the floor toward me, pulling a combat knife from a fallen mercenary’s vest. “Everything fell apart because of you, you fat bitch!”
I didn't freeze. I didn't scream for help.
I remembered every late night in the Chicago trauma ward, treating victims of domestic violence and street thugs who thought cruelty made them strong.
As Julian lunged, knife raised, I sidestepped his clumsy thrust, letting his forward momentum carry him past me. I grabbed an unbroken, heavy magnum of Cabernet from the nearest iron rack and swung it with all the force in my broad shoulders.
The heavy glass connected with the side of Julian’s skull with a sickening crack.
The bottle shattered, showering Julian in alcohol and glass shards as he dropped like a sack of wet cement onto the floor, unconscious and bleeding heavily from his ear.
Across the room, the final gunshot echoed and died away.
Silence returned to the cellar, heavy and absolute, broken only by the sound of Camila’s frantic, ragged sobbing.
Luca Falcone lay dead on the concrete, a bullet hole perfectly centered between his eyes. The remaining mercenaries were neutralized.
Dante stood in the center of the carnage, his shirt torn, a graze of blood across his cheekbone, but entirely whole. He lowered his smoking pistol, his eyes sweeping across the room until they found me standing over Julian’s limp body with the jagged neck of the broken wine bottle still clutched in my hand.
A slow, breathless smile broke across his face.
“Remind me never to make you angry in the wine cellar,” he said softly, walking over to me.
He gently pried the broken glass from my fingers, tossed it aside, and pulled me into his arms. He buried his face in my neck, holding me so tightly I could feel the thunderous pounding of his heart against my ribs.
“You’re safe,” Dante whispered, his voice trembling with relief. “You’re safe, Clara.”
Behind us, Camila dragged herself out from beneath the crates, her hands covered in wine and soot, looking up at us in pathetic, broken despair.
“Dante...” she whimpered, reaching out a trembling hand toward him. “Please... he made me do it... Julian forced me...”
Dante didn't turn around. He didn't even look at her.
“Marco,” Dante commanded, keeping his arms locked around me. “Take this trash out to the courtyard. Hand both Sterlings over to the federal authorities with every shred of evidence we have. If they ever step foot in New York again, feed them to the fish.”
May you like
Two guards hauled Camila away as she wept, her desperate cries vanishing into the rain-soaked night, leaving only Dante and me in the quiet sanctuary of the cellar.
***
