Chapter 8 - The Price of Treason
"Quiet, Sophie," Anna whispered, weeping into her daughter's hair. "Close your eyes, baby. Keep them closed."
Marcus smirked, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Goodbye, Dante."
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, the heavy crystal chandelier hanging in the hallway outside shattered with a deafening crash. A sniper round punched clean through the exterior second-story window, tearing through the shoulder of the rogue enforcer standing behind Marcus. The man collapsed with a gurgling shriek, dropping his rifle onto the floor.
Marcus flinched, his eyes darting toward the window in panic.
In that fraction of a second, Dante moved.
He didn't draw a gun; he lunged forward with blinding, terrifying speed honed by decades of street warfare. His left hand slammed into Marcus’s wrist, forcing the Beretta upward as a bullet discharged harmlessly into the ceiling plaster. With his right elbow, Dante struck Marcus across the jaw with the force of a battering ram.
Marcus staggered back into the hallway, blood spraying from his split lip. The remaining two rogue guards raised their weapons, but they were cut down instantly by a hail of suppressed gunfire coming from the grand staircase.
Henry Cole stepped into the hallway, holding a twelve-gauge shotgun at his hip, flanked by six of Dante’s oldest and most loyal soldiers.
"Drop your weapons, gentlemen," Henry said calmly, racking the shotgun slide with an unmistakable, lethal metallic clatter.
The surviving rogue enforcer threw his rifle onto the carpet and dropped to his knees, his hands raised in surrender.
Marcus scrambled backward on his elbows, spitting blood and teeth, staring up at Dante with wild, animalistic terror. Dante walked out of the bedroom, stepping over the shattered glass, his tailored suit completely unruffled.
He looked down at the man who had sat at his table for twelve years, the man who had hugged him at Matteo’s empty funeral.
"Did you really think," Dante said, his voice a low rumble of absolute authority, "that Henry didn't notice you disabling the security cameras on the east wing twenty minutes ago? You were so busy watching my lapel that you forgot who built this empire from the dirt."
"Dante... please!" Marcus gasped, clutching his shattered jaw, dragging himself backward until his spine hit the mahogany banister. "We were brothers! We grew up on the same streets! Antonio Russo forced my hand! He threatened to kill me if I didn't help him take the terminals!"
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Dante pulled the Kimber .45 from his inner holster, cocking the hammer with a slow, deliberate thumb.
"My brother is buried in a quiet churchyard in Cambridge," Dante said, looking down into Marcus’s pleading eyes. "You are just a rat who stayed in the kitchen too long."
