Chapter 8 - The Betrayal
Two days after the park shooting, the estate was on lockdown.
Armored SUVs blocked the cobblestone driveway. Men in tactical vests stood guard at every entrance, shotguns held across their chests. Rico had vanished into the city at dawn, accompanied by Dante and forty heavily armed soldiers, launching a coordinated, scorched-earth offensive against the Marcone syndicates across Queens, Brooklyn, and New Jersey.
Inside the quiet fortress, Clara was sitting in the third-floor sunroom. Her shoulder throbbed with a dull, manageable ache, thanks to the painkillers Dr. Rossi had prescribed. Leo sat on the floor beside her, happily building a massive tower out of wooden blocks.
“Look, Lara! Big castle! Dada castle!” Leo beamed.
“It’s beautiful, my love,” Clara smiled, running her good hand through his soft curls.
Her encrypted smartphone buzzed on the glass coffee table.
Clara picked it up, expecting an update from Rico. Her screen did not display Rico’s secure number. It displayed an unknown, scrambled local exchange.
She tapped the screen. “Hello?”
“Did you really think a pair of broken wrists would keep me away from twenty grand, Clara?”
Julian’s voice slithered through the receiver like acid.
Clara froze. The air left her lungs. “Julian? How did you get this number?”
A cold, wet laugh crackled through the speaker. “You think your mob prince is the only one who knows how to buy people? The Marcones reached out to me the second I checked into the hospital in Jersey. Turns out, the enemy of their enemy is a very useful friend. They paid my medical bills. And they gave me a job.”
“You’re insane,” Clara whispered, standing up slowly, placing herself between the phone and Leo. “Rico will kill you. He will rip you apart with his bare hands.”
“Rico isn't here, sweet cheeks,” Julian mocked. “He’s over in Long Island City chasing a decoy convoy the Marcones set up for him. Your fancy house is running on a skeleton crew. And guess who just signed for the grocery delivery at the back service gate?”
The line went dead.
Before Clara could scream for the guards, the heavy glass doors of the sunroom shattered inward.
Two men in black tactical gear burst into the room, their faces hidden behind ballistic masks. Behind them walked Julian, both of his forearms wrapped in heavy fiberglass casts, his eyes burning with an unhinged, feral madness.
“Guards!” Clara shrieked, lunging toward Leo.
One of the masked men stepped forward, swinging the butt of his submachine gun. The heavy composite stock caught Clara across the jaw. The world spun in a blinding flash of red and black, and she slammed hard against the marble floor, her wounded shoulder screaming in agony as the sutures tore open.
“Lara!” Leo wailed, his tiny voice piercing the air as the second man scooped the thrashing toddler off the floor.
“Shut him up!” Julian hissed. “Grab the kid! Leave the bitch—let Moretti come home and see what happens when he doesn't pay his debts!”
Clara fought through the blackness creeping across her vision. She clawed at the floor, dragging her bleeding body forward, her fingers brushing the hem of the man’s combat pants.
“No… please… take me… leave Leo…” she choked out, blood pooling in her mouth.
Julian kicked her hand away with a heavy work boot. “Too late, Clara. Should’ve stayed in Ohio.”
They vanished through the broken terrace doors, the sounds of muffled gunfire echoing from the lower floors as the Marcone hit squad executed their brutal, lightning-fast extraction.
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Clara lay on the cold marble, the world fading to black, Leo’s distant, terror-filled screams echoing in her ears like a death knell.
***
