Chapter 5 - A CONTRACT WRITTEN IN BLOOD
“Bee!” Jolene’s scream echoed from the second-floor hall as she lunged through the doorway, throwing her body between her daughter and the rifle barrel of Moretti’s lead infiltrator.
The gunman didn't shoot. He swung the butt of his weapon, striking Jolene across the cheekbone. She hit the parquet floor hard, blood immediately springing from the split skin above her eye, but she didn't stop crawling. She threw her arms around Bee’s small waist, dragging the child beneath her chest, covering Bee’s head with both hands.
Down in the foyer, Carlo let out a wet, triumphant bark of laughter. “There she is! My beautiful little runaway! Get them down here, Sal! Bring my property to the truck!”
Alio didn't yell. He didn't issue an idle threat. The temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero.
He lowered his weapon, stepping out into the center of the shattered marble foyer, directly into Carlo’s line of sight. His dark eyes locked onto Carlo with an intensity so absolute, so devoid of human hesitation, that Carlo’s finger tightened nervously against the detonator toggle.
“You have three seconds to take your men off that balcony, Carlo,” Alio said, his voice carrying clearly over the hiss of melting drywall and the groans of dying men. “Or I will make sure what happened to your family in Brooklyn looks like a mercy.”
“You don't have the leverage, Alio!” Carlo shrieked, backing toward the shattered doorway. “I have twenty pounds of military plastic on my chest! I press this switch, and your precious mansion collapses into the wine cellar! Where’s your son, huh? Is he hiding in the walls? Give me Jolene’s ledger codes, let me take the girl, and I leave!”
From the upper landing, little Theo appeared.
He didn't run. He walked with slow, deliberate steps toward Jolene and Bee, completely ignoring the armed men standing around him. In his small hands, he held the silver toy car. He walked over to where Jolene lay bleeding on the floor, crouched down beside her, and gently laid the silver car against her bruised cheek.
“Don't hurt Miss Jolene,” Theo said. His voice was soft, but in the echoing expanse of the ruined foyer, it was louder than the gunfire. “She sings the birds to sleep.”
Carlo’s eyes widened in deranged shock. “What the hell is that? Salvatore’s mute brat is talking?”
Taking advantage of Carlo’s momentary bewilderment, Alio moved.
He didn't draw his gun. He lunged across the four yards of marble with the speed of an apex predator. His left hand seized Carlo’s wrist, twisting it inward until the radius bone snapped with a sickening, wet crunch.
Carlo screamed, his fingers losing grip on the detonator.
Before the plastic device could hit the floor, Alio caught it in mid-air with his right hand, thumb sliding beneath the deadman's switch to prevent the circuit from completing. With his knee, he drove a devastating blow into Carlo’s sternum, lifting the grown man off his feet and slamming him flat onto the shattered glass of the entrance.
Up on the mezzanine, Dante’s concealed sharpshooters fired through the skylight. Three suppressed cracks tore through the roof. The two men who had cornered Jolene and the children collapsed instantly, dead before they hit the carpet.
Alio stood over Carlo, pressing his heavy polished boot directly onto the fractured bone of Carlo’s chest. He reached down, calmly disconnected the primary wiring harness from the explosive vest, and tossed the useless detonator into the corner.
Carlo lay coughing up dark crimson foam, his eyes wide with the realization of death. “Alio... please... she’s my wife... by the church... she belongs to me...”
Alio bent down. His face was inches from Carlo’s ruined features.
“A woman who carries your brand does not belong to you, Carlo,” Alio whispered, his voice smooth, dark, and final. “She was a slave in your house. In my house, she is the mother of the girl who gave my son his voice back.”
Alio drew his Kimber, pressed the cold steel barrel beneath Carlo’s chin, and pulled the trigger.
The blast boomed once, final and clean.
Alio stood up, holstered his weapon, and smoothed the lapels of his ruined suit jacket. He looked up toward the balcony.
Theo was still sitting beside Jolene, his small arms wrapped tightly around her neck. Bee was crying softly, her face buried in her mother’s torn apron. Jolene looked down over the marble balustrade at Alio, her face pale, blood trickling down her jaw, her hazel eyes wide with shock.
“Dante,” Alio commanded without looking back. “Clean this filth off my floor. Call Dr. Rossi to attend to Jolene’s injuries. And have the master suite on the third floor prepared.”
Dante blinked. “The master suite, Don Salvatore? For the maid?”
Alio looked up at the woman who had protected his son with her own flesh.
May you like
“She is not a maid anymore,” Alio said. “She is under the Salvatore sovereign mantle. Anyone who speaks to her with anything less than the reverence owed to a Donna will answer to me.”
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