Chapter 10 - THE FALL OF TOMMY MARCONE
The freezing rain drenched Elena to the skin within seconds, plastering her dark hair to her face and soaking the heavy silk of her emerald gown. The mud of the shipping yard dragged at her bare feet, but she didn't slow down. Gunfire thundered like rolling drums across the asphalt, accompanied by the screams of wounded men and the harsh bark of tactical orders.
Elena ducked behind a stack of rusted steel shipping containers, moving swiftly through the shadows.
Ahead of her, the warehouse loading bay was a war zone. Three of Marco’s enforcers were laying down suppressing fire from behind an overturned truck, while Marco himself was advancing through the main entry doors, his weapon raised, firing with surgical precision.
Inside the cavernous, echoing warehouse, Tommy Marcone was backed against a towering forklift loaded with wooden crates. He was bleeding from a shrapnel wound on his forearm, his designer suit shredded and stained with grease. In his hands, he held a heavy tactical shotgun, aiming directly at the doorway where Marco was advancing.
“Come on, Salieri!” Marcone screamed over the dying chatter of gunfire. “Come get what’s left of your empire! You think the Commission will save you? I bought off three of their capos! They’re on their way right now!”
Marco stepped through the shattered glass doors of the office bay, stepping over the bodies of Marcone’s last bodyguards. His face was streaked with soot and blood, his ice-blue eyes gleaming with cold, implacable fury. He raised his semi-automatic pistol, aiming dead at Marcone’s forehead.
“The Commission isn't coming, Tommy,” Marco said, his voice cutting through the ringing silence of the warehouse. “Don Vincenzo personally signed your death warrant thirty minutes ago. You have no money. You have no family. You’re done.”
Marcone sneered, raising the shotgun. “I’m taking you to hell with me, boy!”
Behind Marco, from the elevated catwalk above the warehouse floor, a wounded sniper Marcone had positioned earlier weakly raised an assault rifle, lining up a shot directly at the back of Marco’s head.
“Marco! Above you!” Elena screamed at the top of her lungs, bursting through the side personnel door.
Marco’s reflexes were superhuman.
He didn't ask questions. He spun on his heel, dropped to one knee, and fired three rounds upward into the catwalk mesh. The hidden shooter jerked violently, dropping his rifle, before tumbling over the yellow railing and crashing thirty feet down onto the concrete floor.
Taking advantage of the split-second distraction, Tommy Marcone pulled the trigger of his shotgun.
The blast boomed like thunder. Buckshot tore through the wooden crates near the entrance. Marco lunged forward, closing the distance in three massive strides. Before Marcone could rack the slide for a second shot, Marco grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, wrenched it violently from Marcone’s grip, and drove the butt of his pistol hard across Marcone’s jaw.
The impact sent Marcone crashing backward against the forklift tires, spitting blood and broken teeth onto the greasy floor.
Marcone scrambled backward, gasping, his hands raised in pathetic terror as Marco stepped over him, pressing the smoking barrel of his pistol firmly between Marcone’s eyes.
“Wait... wait, Marco,” Marcone whimpered, the bravado completely draining from his ruined face. “We can cut a deal. Julian’s money... we split it fifty-fifty. You can have Newark. You can have the ports. Just let me walk away.”
Marco didn't answer. He slowly cocked the hammer of the gun. The metallic click was the loudest sound in the universe.
“Please,” Marcone choked out. “Have mercy.”
“Mercy is for church on Sunday, Tommy,” Marco whispered, his voice deadly soft. “This is business. And you touched what was mine.”
Marco pulled the trigger.
The gunshot echoed through the massive warehouse, then faded into the relentless drumming of the rain against the corrugated tin roof. Tommy Marcone slumped lifelessly against the forklift.
Marco lowered the gun. The silence that rushed back into the room was heavy and absolute.
He turned slowly, his eyes finding Elena standing by the doorway, trembling, soaked in rainwater, her bare feet bleeding from shards of glass on the concrete.
Marco dropped his weapon to the floor. The heavy steel clattered harmlessly away. He took long, unhurried strides toward her, closing the distance between them until he was standing directly in front of her.
Without a word, he reached out, pulled her into his chest, and buried his face in the crook of her wet neck. His arms wrapped around her like iron bands, holding her with a desperate, crushing intensity that took the breath straight out of her lungs.
“I told you to stay in the car,” he choked out, his voice cracking with raw, unvarnished emotion. “You could have died, Elena. You could have died.”
Elena wrapped her arms around his broad back, clutching at the damp wool of his suit, resting her cheek against his racing heart.
“You would have taken that bullet from the catwalk if I hadn't,” she whispered, burying her face into his chest. “I wasn't going to let you die for me. Not anymore.”
Marco pulled back slightly, his hands cupping her cold, wet face. In the dim light of the warehouse, surrounded by the ruins of Marcone’s empire, the ice in his blue eyes completely melted away, leaving behind an ocean of fierce, reverent love.
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“The war is over, Elena,” he murmured, his forehead resting gently against hers. “It’s over.”
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