Chapter 10 - THE SIEGE OF THE NORTH SHORE
The grand salon turned into a war zone in three seconds.
Glass exploded inward from the terrace as high-powered rifle rounds shredded the heavy drapes.
Don Cavallo wasn't waiting for the Commission’s vote.
He had placed his strike team in the woods surrounding the estate hours before the meeting began.
He had planned to execute the entire Moretti leadership in one stroke.
“Down!” Dante roared.
He did not dive for his own cover.
He sprinted across the open parquet floor, hurling his body over the piano bench.
He wrapped his massive frame around Clara and Leo, taking them down behind the thick, curved hardwood of the Steinway.
A volley of armor-piercing bullets slammed into the piano’s white casing.
Wood splinters sprayed like shrapnel.
The steel strings inside snapped with violent, musical shrieks.
Leo covered his ears, screaming into Clara’s neck.
Clara wrapped her arms around the boy, pressing his head firmly into her chest.
“I have you, Leo! I have you!” she shouted over the deafening roar of gunfire.
Dante pulled a compact assault carbine from beneath the piano’s soundboard.
He had bolted it there at five in the morning.
He racked the slide with one brutal, practiced jerk.
Across the room, Don Bernardo was pinned behind a leather armchair.
His elderly bodyguards were firing back through the shattered terrace, their pistols hopelessly outmatched by the mercenaries’ automatic rifles.
Cavallo was scrambling toward the side exit, escorted by four masked operators in tactical black.
“Marco!” Dante shouted into his tactical headset.
“Engage the lawn perimeter!”
“Heavy artillery on the south terrace, now!”
The estate shuddered.
From the roof above, the Moretti syndicate’s heavy machine gun nests opened fire.
A storm of lead tore through the tree line, chewing through the mist and ripping the attacking mercenaries apart.
Dante rose to one knee behind the battered piano.
He sighted his weapon through the broken French doors.
He fired three controlled bursts.
Two of Cavallo’s operators dropped instantly on the flagstones.
The third operator raised an RPG launcher from behind a marble fountain.
“Dante! The fountain!” Clara screamed, spotting the green tube through the smoke.
Dante didn't hesitate.
He stepped out from behind the piano’s cover, exposing his chest to the incoming fire.
He fired a single round through the mercenary’s forehead.
The man collapsed backward.
The rocket fired wild, soaring high into the gray morning sky and detonating harmlessly against the stone chimney of the carriage house.
A deafening explosion rocked the mansion.
Soot and masonry rained down into the salon.
Dante reloaded his magazine without looking at his hands.
He turned toward the credenza.
Luca was crawling along the floorboards toward the service corridor, dragging his bleeding arm behind him.
Dante walked across the room, his heavy dress shoes crushing broken glass and wood splinters.
He planted his boot squarely on Luca’s uninjured shoulder, pinning his cousin to the bloody floor.
Luca gasped, coughing dark blood onto the Persian rug.
“Dante... please,” Luca wheezed.
“Cavallo made me do it... he threatened my sister...”
Dante looked down at him with cold, dead eyes.
“Elena called you her brother, Luca.”
“She made you godfather to my son.”
“Dante... we’re blood...”
Dante didn't answer with words.
He looked at Don Bernardo, who was slowly rising from behind the armchair, his face etched with ancient, unforgiving judgment.
Don Bernardo raised his silver cane and tapped the floor once.
The traditional sentence of the Commission.
No trial.
No appeal.
Dante turned his rifle downward.
He squeezed the trigger once.
The shot cracked through the smoke-filled room.
Luca Moretti went limp.
Silence descended upon the interior of the mansion, punctuated only by the distant mopping-up fire on the outer lawns.
Marco appeared in the terrace doorway, his rifle lowered, his face covered in soot.
“Cavallo’s truck was intercepted at the front gate, boss.”
Marco spat blood onto the patio.
“The old bastard is in zip-ties in the back of the van.”
Dante lowered his weapon.
The adrenaline slowly drained from his posture, leaving behind the heavy, suffocating silence of absolute victory.
He turned back toward the shattered piano.
Clara was still on the floor, her arms wrapped around Leo.
Her navy dress was covered in plaster dust and white wood splinters.
Her hair was wild, her hazel eyes wide with terror and shock.
But beneath her, uninjured and breathing steadily, lay his son.
Leo had stopped screaming.
He was looking up at Clara, his small fingers lightly touching the frayed lace of her collar.
“Soft blue,” the boy whispered into the silence.
Dante’s chest heaved.
A crack appeared in the granite armor he had worn for thirty-five years.
He crossed the room and dropped to his knees before them.
He didn't touch his son first.
He reached out and took Clara’s trembling hands into his own blood-stained palms.
“Are you hurt?” Dante whispered.
His voice was hoarse, raw with an emotion that had nothing to do with power or fear.
Clara looked at him through her tears.
She shook her head.
“We’re alive, Dante.”
“We’re alive.”
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Dante pulled them both into his arms, burying his face in the space between Clara’s shoulder and his son’s dark hair.
For the first time in three years, the Don of Boston let down his guard.
