Chapter 3 - THE CUT BRAKE LINES
The rain washed the blood from Alessandro's shoulder down my neck.
He pulled me up by the waist.
He dragged me across the terrace into the cover of the portico.
Two guards rushed forward, carbines raised, forming a wall of steel.
"Boss! Clear the courtyard!" one shouted.
"The black Mercedes," Alessandro ordered through gritted teeth.
"Bring it to the service ramp. Now!"
I tried to pull away from his grip.
My boots slipped on the wet stone.
"Let go of me, Alessandro!"
"I told you I’m leaving!"
He spun me around, slamming his uninjured arm against the stone pillar.
He trapped me in the alcove.
His eyes burned with furious, desperate intensity.
"Listen to me, Sofia!"
"Whoever set up that sniper didn't want you to leave this property alive."
"If you walk beyond those gates, you are a corpse in twenty seconds."
"Your mistress is in your library!" I screamed back.
Tears burned my eyes, hot against the freezing rain.
"Your guards let her into our bed!"
"How do I know this wasn't arranged by you?!"
He flinched as if I had driven a dagger between his ribs.
His throat moved convulsively.
"I would burn this city to ash before I let anyone harm a hair on your head."
"You already harmed me!"
"You killed my mother's memory tonight!"
The service elevator at the side of the portico opened.
Enzo, his chief of personal security, sprinted out into the drizzle.
His face was ghostly pale.
"Don Moretti!" Enzo yelled, gasping for breath.
"The Mercedes is compromised!"
Alessandro froze.
His grip on my arm tightened.
"What did you find, Enzo?"
"The garage surveillance loop was frozen at twelve-forty," Enzo said.
"The hydraulic brake lines on Donna Moretti’s private sedan were sliced."
"A remote incendiary device was wired beneath her gas tank."
My heart stopped beating.
My breath caught in my throat.
At twelve-forty, I had still been asleep upstairs.
Someone had rigged my car before I even woke up.
Before I walked down the hall.
Before I opened the library door.
"They expected you to drive away, Sofia," Alessandro murmured.
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
The kind of calm that preceded mass executions in the Chicago underworld.
"They planned the confrontation."
"They wanted you to catch us."
"They wanted you to run into that car and burn on the highway."
I looked toward the heavy library windows.
Inside, through the sheer curtains, a shadow moved.
Valentina Russo stood beside the fireplace.
Her hand held a phone to her ear.
She wasn't crying anymore.
Her lips were curved into a sharp, triumphant sneer.
My blood turned to pure acid.
The betrayal was not an impulse.
It was not a drunken mistake after a long night of negotiations.
It was an assassination plot dressed in silk and lipstick.
"Alessandro," I whispered, my voice trembling with cold fury.
He looked down at me.
"Who supplied the security codes to the private garage?"
Alessandro's jaw shifted.
The muscles in his neck pulled taut like drawn bowstrings.
"Only three people have those codes, Sofia."
"Enzo."
"Me."
He paused, his eyes darkening to the color of bruised slate.
"And Marco Russo."
Valentina’s older brother.
The man who controlled the freight terminals on the South Side docks.
"Your ally," I said.
The word was a whip against his face.
"Your trusted friend."
"The man whose sister you welcomed into my mother's bedroom."
Alessandro reached into his jacket.
He drew a custom Kimber .45 from his shoulder holster.
He racked the slide with a single, brutal flick of his wrist.
CLACK.
"Enzo," Alessandro commanded without looking away from the library window.
"Seal the estate perimeter."
May you like
"Cut the telephone wires."
"Nobody leaves this house alive until I get my answers."
