Chapter 8 - The Fall of the Traitors
Marco didn't get far.
Declan’s heavy boot came down squarely in the center of the mob boss’s spine, pinning him to the cold, oil-slicked concrete of the pier.
The Castiglione boss groaned, spitting blood onto the stone. "Rossi... listen to me... this was business... just business..."
Declan leaned down, grabbing Marco by the collar of his sheepskin coat, dragging him up until their faces were inches apart. The morning sun was finally breaking over the water, casting long, sharp shadows across the bodies of the fallen men.
"You tried to murder me on my wedding night," Declan said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "You brought foreign guns into my streets. You insulted my house. That isn't business, Marco. That’s a death sentence."
"Declan, wait," Nora called out.
Declan paused, his hand still clamped around Marco’s throat, glancing over his shoulder.
Nora walked up, holding a satellite phone she had stripped from one of the dead lieutenants. She showed him the glowing screen.
"A secondary transaction," Nora said, her tactical eye catching what the adrenaline of combat had obscured. "Marco wasn't working alone with Silvio. The ledger shows three wire transfers to an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Registered to Bianca Rossi."
Declan’s eyes went completely black. "Bianca."
"She wasn't just Silvio's mouthpiece," Nora explained, pointing to the timestamps. "She was the architect. She brokered the alliance with the Castigliones while Silvio took the fall as the executioner. If Silvio failed, Bianca had already prepared to step forward as the grieving heir and hand the keys to Marco."
Marco laughed weakly through his bloody teeth. "The girl... played you both, Rossi. She’s already at the private terminal at O’Hare. She’s gone."
Declan looked down at Marco.
"She won't get far," Declan said.
He didn't fire a weapon. He simply shoved Marco backward over the edge of the pier.
The heavy splash of the man hitting the freezing, churning waters of Lake Michigan was swallowed by the horn of a distant freighter. Declan didn't look down to watch him sink.
He turned to Nora, the morning wind whipping through his dark hair. "The private terminal. We have twenty minutes."
"We won't need twenty," Nora said, pulling the keys to Marco’s custom high-performance SUV from her pocket. "I know the service roads."
***
The runway at O'Hare was swept with bitter Midwest winds as Bianca Rossi paced the tarmac beside a Gulfstream G550.
She was dressed in a pristine white trench coat, diamond earrings catching the pale morning light, clutching a leather briefcase containing the bearer bonds that represented forty percent of the Rossi family’s liquid wealth.
"Hurry up with the luggage!" she snapped at the pilot. "We need wheels up in three minutes!"
"I'm afraid your flight has been canceled, cousin."
Bianca froze.
The black SUV barreled through the security gate, the chain-link fence tearing away like tissue paper, coming to a sliding, screeching halt across the tarmac fifty feet from the jet’s boarding stairs.
The doors opened.
Declan stepped out, his dark coat billowing in the jet wash, uninjured, commanding, and absolute.
Behind him stepped Nora Vale.
She was still in her combat gear, a smear of carbon across her cheekbone, her eyes flat and cold. In her hand, she held the leather-bound ledger recovered from the docks.
Bianca’s briefcase dropped from her trembling fingers, spilling stacks of high-denomination bonds across the wet asphalt.
"Declan..." Bianca whispered, her voice failing her. "Declan, you don't understand... Silvio forced me... he threatened my life..."
"Don't lie to him, Bianca," Nora said, stepping forward until she stood beside Declan. "We pulled the Cayman account. We saw the contract you signed with the Castiglione family. You offered twenty-five percent of the docks in exchange for Declan’s execution."
Bianca looked at Nora, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into ugly, vicious venom.
"You!" Bianca shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at Nora. "You fat, common whore! You were supposed to be a joke! A distraction so Declan wouldn't look at the ledgers! You weren't even supposed to survive the first night!"
Declan moved.
He didn't raise his hand against a woman of his own blood, but he stepped into Bianca’s space with a physical presence so overwhelming that she collapsed backward onto the cold tarmac, trembling like a leaf.
"You mocked my wife," Declan said, his voice shaking with a rage that silenced the whine of the jet engines. "You mocked her size. You mocked her birth. You called her ordinary."
He knelt down, his hand clamping around the collar of her white coat, dragging her face up to his.
"This woman has more honor in her scarred knuckles than the entire Rossi bloodline has possessed in fifty years. She stood between me and death while you were selling our legacy to dogs."
Declan stood up, turning his back on her.
"Take her," he ordered the two syndicate enforcers who had arrived in the chase vehicle behind them. "A private cell in the North Side facility. She will spend the rest of her life counting the money she will never spend."
Bianca screamed, clawing at the asphalt as the enforcers dragged her away toward the waiting sedan.
Nora stood on the runway, watching the car speed away. She felt the heavy, quiet exhaustion of a seventy-two-hour mission finally settling into her muscles.
She turned to Declan. "The contract is complete. Silvio is gone, Marco is eliminated, and the traitors inside the syndicate have been neutralized. Your position is unassailable."
She reached down to her finger, preparing to slide the diamond wedding band off her knuckle. "I’ll have my agency file the standard exit paperwork. Elena is safe in Zurich. You can declare an annulment by the end of the week."
Declan reached out, his large, scarred hand closing over hers, stopping the ring before it could move a millimeter.
"What are you doing?" she asked, looking up into his eyes.
Declan pulled her hand to his chest, pressing her palm against the steady, powerful rhythm of his heart—the heart she had restarted with her own hands.
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"I told you once, Nora Vale," he said softly, the harsh wind blowing her dark hair across her face. "In this city, when a Rossi takes a wife, only death dissolves the bond. I didn't marry a contract. I married the woman who guarded my door."
***
