Chapter 7 - The Betrayal at Dawn
Before I could scream, Marco closed the distance, his gloved hand clamping brutally over my mouth while his other arm pinned my injured ribs against his chest.
Agony exploded through my healing scars. My breath caught in my throat, black spots dancing across my vision. I kicked, clawed, and tried to sink my teeth into his leather glove, but he was a trained enforcer twice my size.
"Make a sound, and I put a round through your skull right here," Marco hissed into my ear. "Costa wants you alive, but he didn't say whole."
A sharp needle pierced the skin of my neck. Within seconds, a heavy, paralyzing warmth surged through my bloodstream. The study began to tilt. My hands lost their grip on my father’s papers, the white sheets scattering across the floor like dead leaves.
The last thing I saw before the darkness swallowed me was the framed portrait of Dominic and his father on the wall, staring down at my ruined world.
***
Consciousness returned in fragments: the sour taste of copper in my mouth, the freezing dampness of sea air, and the rhythmic, hollow sloshing of water against concrete pilings.
I was tied to a rusted iron chair in the center of an abandoned industrial warehouse. High above, broken skylights let in the gray, dreary light of a stormy dawn. The air smelled of diesel fuel, rotting fish, and wet rust. Red Hook, Brooklyn. The old shipping piers.
My head pounded viciously. My hands were bound behind my back with heavy zip-ties, and a strip of industrial duct tape covered my mouth.
"Ah, the sleeping beauty awakens."
Victor Costa stepped out of the shadows, wearing a heavy wool coat. Behind him stood four armed mercenaries in tactical gear, their rifles slung across their chests. And standing beside Costa, counting a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills, was Marco.
"A good investment, Marco," Costa purred, patting the traitor on the shoulder. "The great Dominic Rossi thought his estate was an impenetrable fortress. He forgot that every fortress has a back door if you pay the guard enough."
Marco tucked the cash into his coat, his eyes refusing to meet mine. "Just finish it, Victor. When Dominic realizes she’s gone, he’s going to burn every warehouse in the five boroughs to the ground."
"Let him come," Costa smiled, stepping toward me. He reached out and ripped the duct tape from my mouth with a vicious yank.
I choked back a scream of pain, glaring up at him with pure hatred. "He’s going to kill you, Costa. He’s going to tear your head off."
Costa threw his head back and laughed—a dry, rattling sound that echoed through the vast warehouse. "Your father said the exact same thing twenty years ago, little Clara. *'Antonio will kill you. Dominic will kill you.'* Yet here I am, alive, rich, and about to erase the last trace of Thomas Hayes from this earth."
He pulled a folding knife from his pocket, flicking open a five-inch serrated blade with a sharp *clack*.
"Your husband was lured to a fake sit-down in Bushwick," Costa sneered, pressing the flat of the cold steel against my jawline. "By the time he figures out it was a ghost run, you will be floating in the East River with forty pounds of lead chained to your ankles. But not before I broadcast your execution to every boss on the Commission."
He nodded to one of his men, who set up a high-definition video camera on a tripod, aiming the lens directly at my face.
"When they see the Rossi Donna begging for her life," Costa whispered, his eyes gleaming with mad triumph, "Dominic’s empire crumbles. No one respects a king who cannot protect his own queen."
"I am not begging you for anything," I spat, blood mixing with my saliva as I looked directly into the camera lens. "My father took nine bullets to save a twelve-year-old boy. I took seven to save his mother. Do you really think a coward who hides behind traitors can make me beg?"
Costa's face twisted in sudden fury. He raised his hand, the knife glinting—
A thunderous explosion tore the front roll-up doors off their steel tracks.
A wall of fire, shattered glass, and twisted metal blasted across the warehouse floor. The concussive wave knocked two of Costa's men off their feet. Alarms wailed, smoke billowed in choking black clouds, and before the debris even settled, the deafening roar of automatic gunfire ripped through the space.
Through the blazing doorway, a solitary black SUV slammed through the burning wreckage, its tires spinning across the concrete before screeching to a halt.
The driver’s door kicked open.
Dominic Rossi stepped out into the smoke.
He wore no body armor. He wore no tactical gear. Just a blood-splattered dress shirt, his eyes glowing with an apocalyptic fury that seemed almost supernatural. In his right hand was a tactical combat shotgun; in his left, a heavy automatic pistol.
Behind him, through the smoking breach, Enzo and twenty Rossi soldiers flooded the warehouse like an invading army.
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"Costa!" Dominic’s voice roared over the screech of alarms, shaking the very foundation of the pier. "YOU TOUCHED MY WIFE!"
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