Chapter 7 - Blood and Espresso
"Touch the Maybach, Marco," Dante whispered, his voice carrying the terrifying finality of a death sentence across the wet runway, "and I will paint this concrete with brains old enough to know better."
Marco didn't flinch, though a single bead of sweat trickled down his temple, cutting a clean path through his carefully powdered makeup. He raised his hands slowly, palms out, maintaining a tight, frozen grin.
"Dante... Dante, my boy," Marco choked out, his voice losing its theatrical bravado. "We are family. You wouldn't shoot your own blood over a foreign nursemaid."
"You tried to use Richard Vance to compromise my home," Dante said, his eyes burning with a cold, murderous fury. "You put my son in the path of synthetic formula and stress-induced trauma just to test my operational security. You forgot the fundamental rule of the syndicate, Uncle: La famiglia è sacra. You crossed the line."
Before Marco could reply, the roar of a dozen high-powered engines echoed across the perimeter of the private hangar.
From the shadows of the cargo terminals, four unmarked black vans tore onto the tarmac, their headlights blindingly bright. The doors slid open simultaneously, disgorging a dozen of Dante’s loyal enforcers, weapons drawn, surrounding Marco’s men before they could even draw their own sidearms.
"Drop your weapons! Drop them now!" Viktor’s voice boomed across the concrete.
Clatched inside the Maybach, Clare squeezed her eyes shut, pressing Maya’s head hard against her chest to shield her from the nightmare unfolding outside. Her heart hammered in her throat. She had wanted a fresh start in Rome, a quiet couch on a sunlit street, far away from Richard’s fists and the crushing poverty of her old life. Instead, she had landed right in the middle of a mafia civil war.
Outside, the metallic clatter of heavy pistols hitting the wet asphalt echoed through the night.
Marco’s guards dropped their weapons, their hands raised in surrender as Viktor’s men swarmed them with clinical, ruthless efficiency.
Dante didn't lower his gun. He kept the barrel locked dead on his uncle's forehead for three long, agonizing seconds. Then, with a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he holstered the weapon, grabbed Marco by the expensive silk lapel of his trench coat, and hauled the older man forward until their noses were inches apart.
"You're banished," Dante whispered, his voice lethal. "South America. Tonight. If you ever set foot in Italy, or anywhere my son breathes air, I won't use a gun. I'll let you die of old age in a cell of my own design."
He shoved Marco backward so hard the older man stumbled into his disarmed guards, gasping for breath.
"Take him away," Dante barked.
Two enforcers grabbed Marco by the arms, dragging him toward one of the unmarked vans as he cursed and spat into the rain.
Dante turned on his heel, his dark coat billowing behind him in the wet wind, and strode directly toward the armored Maybach. He pulled open the rear door, stepping out of the Italian drizzle and into the warm, shadowed interior where Clare sat trembling with Maya in her arms.
He looked at Clare. The hard, terrifying mafia boss vanished instantly, replaced by a man who looked bone-tired, deeply grateful, and entirely undone.
"Are you alright?" Dante asked, his voice softening to a gentle murmur.
"We're... we're alive," Clare whispered, her voice shaking as she looked up at him. "Is it over?"
"It's over," Dante said softly. He reached out, his warm, calloused fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair from Clare’s forehead, just as he had done on the plane. "Welcome to Rome, Clare. Your cousin's couch is canceled."
Clare blinked, too exhausted to be shocked. "Canceled? Where are we going?"
May you like
Dante offered a faint, tired smile that reached his gray eyes for the very first time.
"To my villa on the Appian Way," Dante said, sliding into the seat beside her and pulling little Leo back into his arms as the Maybach smoothly accelerated into the Roman night. "You saved my son, Clare Jensen. And in my world, when you save a Rossi, you become a Rossi. Let's go home."
