Chapter 10 - INTO THE LION’S DEN
Gunfire shredded the darkness.
Muzzle flashes strobed like lightning bolts inside the enclosed bridge.
Lorenzo rolled across the steel floor by memory.
He hit the first guard at knee level, snapping the man’s shin and stripping the assault rifle from his hands.
Lorenzo fired two short bursts in the dark.
Two mercenaries dropped with heavy groans.
“Kill him!” Silvio screamed hysterically from somewhere near the windows. “Shoot the boy!”
Lorenzo threw himself over Leo’s trembling form, taking two ricocheting shrapnel fragments across his shoulder blades.
He pulled the wire cutters from his utility belt and sliced through Leo’s zip-ties.
“Crawl!” Lorenzo barked into the boy’s ear. “Get behind the steel blast door!”
Leo scrambled through the sparks and broken glass.
Silvio fired three blind shots into the darkness.
One bullet tore through Lorenzo’s left bicep.
Pain flared like liquid fire down his arm, but Lorenzo didn’t even flinch.
He rose from the floor like a specter of vengeance.
A massive searchlight suddenly illuminated the bridge from the sky.
A federal Blackhawk helicopter hovered fifty feet above the barge, rotor wash whipping the sea into a frothing tempest.
Snipers on the helicopter skids opened fire through the shattered bridge windows.
Silvio’s remaining two guards were dropped instantly, their bodies collapsing across the smoldering console.
Silvio stumbled backward toward the emergency exit hatch leading to the helipad.
He clutched the silver briefcase containing his forged passports and bearer bonds.
Lorenzo kicked open the heavy hatch and stepped out onto the open deck.
The wind roared in his ears.
The sleet stung his face.
Silvio stood at the edge of the helipad, backed against the yellow safety railing.
Below him, fifty feet down, the icy harbor churned with flaming black oil.
The older man raised his revolver with both hands, shaking with terrified fury.
“Stay back, Lorenzo! I raised you! I made you the Don of Boston!”
Lorenzo walked forward slowly.
Blood soaked through his ruined shirt, dripping from his arm onto the wet metal grating.
He looked at the man who had murdered Vivienne’s father.
The man who had tried to execute his unborn child.
“You didn’t make me, Silvio,” Lorenzo said, his voice cutting through the helicopter rotors. “You used me to shield your own cowardice.”
Silvio pulled the trigger.
Click.
The cylinder was empty.
Silvio stared at the useless weapon in horror.
Lorenzo reached him in two strides.
His right hand clamped around Silvio’s throat like an iron vice.
He lifted the older man until Silvio’s feet dangled above the helipad deck.
“Please,” Silvio choked out, his face turning purple. “Lorenzo... we’re blood.”
Lorenzo looked into the dying eyes of his uncle.
For five years, this was the moment he had trained for: the cold, merciless execution of a traitor.
In his mind, he saw Vivienne sitting by the cold fireplace, holding her teacup.
He saw her gentle hand resting over her womb.
If he killed Silvio here in cold blood, the mafia boss would survive, but the husband Vivienne deserved would be lost forever.
Lorenzo slammed Silvio down onto the steel deck.
He drove his knee into the old man’s chest, pinning him to the floor.
He snatched the chrome revolver from Silvio’s hand, pulled the cylinder, and hurled the pieces into the freezing sea.
“You’re going to federal prison, Uncle,” Lorenzo whispered coldly. “You’re going to sit in a concrete box and watch my family rebuild everything you tried to destroy.”
FBI tactical operators dropped from fast-ropes onto the deck, their rifles trained on Silvio.
Agent Vance landed beside them, stepping forward with handcuffs drawn.
“Take him,” Lorenzo said, stepping back with his head spinning.
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The countdown timer on the bridge speaker began to wail:
TEN SECONDS TO CORE DETONATION.
