Chapter 4 - Scent of Vanilla and Gunpowder
Dominic walked down the grand marble staircase of the Hudson estate with the measured, relaxed gait of a man descending to breakfast.
His suit was immaculate. He had changed his jacket, swapped out the rumpled shirt, and washed the sweat and tears from his face with freezing water. To the naked eye, Dominic Rainer looked exactly as he always did: cold, aristocratic, untouchable. But beneath the custom-tailored charcoal wool, his muscles were coiled like steel cables, his heart pumping pure adrenaline through his veins.
In the foyer, standing beside the double mahogany entrance doors, stood Luca Bellandi.
Luca was forty-two, lean and sharp-featured, dressed in an Italian overcoat with a cashmere scarf tucked neatly into the collar. He had the easy, confident smile of a man who believed he was three moves ahead of everyone else on the board. Standing behind him near the umbrella stand was an armed enforcer named Tony, an associate from the Brooklyn crew.
“Dominic,” Luca said, his smile widening as he unbuttoned his overcoat. “Good morning. I brought the manifests from the Red Hook terminal. Customs cleared the containers at dawn. We’re clear all the way through to Philadelphia.”
Dominic walked to the center of the foyer, stopping five feet short of his underboss. He didn't offer his hand.
“Good,” Dominic said. “Red Hook was giving us headaches.”
Luca’s dark eyes flicked over Dominic’s shoulder, glancing up toward the second-floor gallery where the guest rooms lay in total silence.
“Everything quiet this morning?” Luca asked, keeping his tone carefully casual, laced with that rehearsed, counterfeit sympathy he had perfected over the past few months. “I saw the car from downtown leave earlier. Did you... did you have the conversation?”
“The conversation,” Dominic repeated.
“About the papers, Boss,” Luca said, lowering his voice, stepping half a foot closer with an expression of deep, fraternal concern. “I know how hard it is for you. Elena was... she was good for you, in the beginning. When things were simple. But a man carrying the weight of four families can’t have a viper in his bed. A woman sneaking out at five in the morning to meet some low-level doctor in Midtown... she’s compromised, Dominic. It was the right move. You gave her five good years. She’ll take the settlement and disappear back to Lakewood.”
Dominic watched Luca’s lips move. He noticed the tiny tick at the corner of Luca’s left eye—a nervous habit he had possessed since they were boys running numbers on the lower west side.
“You’re right, Luca,” Dominic said quietly. “A man carrying this kind of weight can’t afford liabilities.”
Luca’s shoulders relaxed slightly. A flash of triumphant satisfaction—instantly suppressed—passed across his sharp features. “I’m glad to hear you say it, Dom. It’s for the best. Marco is waiting at the docks with the transport team. We can finalize the transfer of the northern routes this afternoon. Clean slate.”
“Let’s talk in the library,” Dominic suggested, gesturing toward the heavy double doors at the end of the east corridor. “Have a drink. Tony, wait out by the cars.”
The Brooklyn enforcer nodded, stepping backward through the front doors into the brisk morning air.
Luca followed Dominic down the carpeted hallway into the library. The room was lined from floor to ceiling with dark mahogany bookshelves, smelling of old leather, pipe tobacco, and single-malt scotch. Dominic walked behind the heavy executive desk, poured two fingers of Macallan into a heavy crystal tumbler, and pushed it across the green blotter.
He didn't pour one for himself.
Luca picked up the glass, took a slow sip, and smiled. “To new beginnings, Dom.”
Dominic stood behind the desk, resting his knuckles on the polished wood. “Tell me about the Lincoln Continental, Luca.”
The glass stopped an inch below Luca’s chin.
The underboss didn't freeze completely, but the smile on his face turned rigid, like wax hardening in cold water. “What Lincoln?”
“The one parked in the secondary garage at the Elizabeth terminal,” Dominic said, his tone conversational, almost pleasant. “The one with the dented front bumper that Marco had pulled into the body shop on November twelfth. The day after the ice storm in Cleveland.”
Luca set the tumbler down on the edge of the desk. The crystal made a sharp, clinking sound against the mahogany. His eyes narrowed, darting toward the closed library doors behind him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dominic. Marco drives a Cadillac.”
“Marco was driving the Continental on Huron Road,” Dominic continued, his voice dropping into a register that made the hairs on the back of Luca’s neck stand up. “You were in the passenger seat. You had me on speakerphone. You told me to stay on the sidewalk because your car was pulling around front. You were lining up the shot.”
Luca’s hand drifted toward the left lapel of his overcoat, where his shoulder holster was hidden. “Dominic, you’ve been under too much stress. The divorce... it’s making you paranoid. Who put this bullshit in your head? Was it Elena? Did she cook up some fantasy to turn you against your own blood?”
“She didn't tell me a damn thing,” Dominic said, stepping out from behind the desk. “She was too busy trying to keep her spine from snapping in two.”
Luca’s fingers brushed the grip of his Walther PPK.
He never got the chance to draw it.
Dominic moved with the explosive, terrifying speed that had made him the most feared capo in the Rainer syndicate. He closed the gap in half a second, his left hand clamping down over Luca’s wrist, pinning the gun inside the overcoat. His right hand seized Luca by the throat, driving the underboss backward across the library.
Luca’s back slammed into the edge of the mahogany desk with a sickening thud. The crystal tumbler tipped over, amber scotch spreading across the leather blotter like spilled blood.
“Dominic—wait!” Luca choked out, his face turning purple as Dominic’s fingers crushed his windpipe. “Listen to me—it wasn't—we had an arrangement with the Detroit council—they wanted you out—!”
“You let my wife take the blow,” Dominic whispered into Luca’s ear, his breath hot and deadly. “You watched her wear a plastic cage for six months. You stood in this room and told me she was sleeping with another man while she was getting needles driven into her spinal cord because she saved my life.”
Dominic drove his knee upward into Luca’s ribs. The crack of breaking bone echoed through the quiet library. Luca shrieked, a high-pitched, pathetic sound, his legs giving out beneath him.
Dominic didn't let him fall. He dragged Luca up by his collar, lifting him until the underboss’s toes barely touched the oriental rug.
“Where is Marco?” Dominic demanded.
“Go to hell,” Luca wheezed, blood flecking his lips.
Dominic slammed him back down against the desk, pinning his right hand flat against the mahogany surface. Before Luca could pull away, Dominic reached into his own waistband, drew a heavy, serrated tactical blade, and drove the steel down through the center of Luca’s hand, pinning it three inches deep into the solid wood.
Luca’s scream tore through the library, loud enough to rattle the windowpanes.
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“I didn't ask for your opinion, brother,” Dominic snarled, leaning over the screaming man, his dark eyes void of all human mercy. “I asked you where your brother is. And if you don't give me an address in the next five seconds, I am going to peel the skin off your fingers one knuckle at a time.”
***
