Chapter 6 - The Ghost in the East Wing
Dominic Luciano quickly pressed the speed dial on his phone, holding it against his ear.
Static.
Dead, unyielding static hummed through the receiver.
"What did you do?" Dominic hissed, the cocky arrogance evaporating from his eyes.
"Thirty minutes ago, forty former Navy SEALs under contract with Moretti Maritime swept the exterior gardens of my estate," Matteo explained, his voice chillingly polite. "Your fifty soldiers didn't even make it past the tree line. They surrendered their weapons to the Illinois State Police five minutes ago."
Dominic cursed under his breath, raising his automatic weapon. "Kill him!"
Before Dominic could pull the trigger, the high warehouse rafters erupted in deafening gunfire.
Matteo’s hidden sniper team, positioned in the rusted iron trusses an hour before the meeting, opened fire with suppressed armor-piercing rounds.
The engine blocks of both New York suburbans cracked with explosive thuds, radiator fluid and black oil spewing across the concrete floor.
Within four seconds, eight of Dominic’s bodyguards were disarmed or incapacitated on the ground, their weapons kicked away by Matteo’s advancing tactical operators.
Dominic stood alone, surrounded by laser sights targeting his forehead, his pistol hanging limply at his side.
Matteo walked up to him, his eyes colder than the winter rain pouring through the shattered doors.
He reached out, plucked the weapon from Dominic’s trembling leather glove, and tossed it into the puddle behind him.
"You broke the interstate truce, Dominic," Matteo said quietly. "You targeted non-combatants under my protection. Under the Commission's rules, your life belongs to me."
"My father will wipe Chicago off the map," Dominic gasped, trying to summon an ounce of bravado.
"Your father is a businessman," Matteo corrected. "He will look at the forty million dollars in seized Luciano shipping assets my lawyers are filing liens against tonight, and he will thank me for sending his arrogant son home on a commercial bus with his tail between his legs."
Matteo signaled to Marco.
"Put Dominic and Adrian on a freight train heading east," Matteo ordered. "If either of them ever crosses the Indiana border again, don't call me. Just bury them."
Adrian fell to his knees again, screaming and begging for mercy as two massive guards dragged him toward the exit.
"Matteo! I'm your brother! You can't do this to your own blood!"
Matteo turned his back on his brother’s cries, walking out into the pouring rain without looking back a single time.
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The cross had been carried. The promise to his father was fulfilled: he had kept Adrian alive.
Now, his only duty was to protect the innocent lives waiting for him on the shores of Lake Michigan.
