Chapter 8 - The Price of Loyalty
The heavy steel blast doors hissed open with a hydraulic groan.
Enzo walked in, his silver hair immaculate, his trench coat open to reveal a tailored charcoal three-piece suit. Behind him, four mercenaries raised their rifles, sweeping the dimly lit concrete room.
Dominic stood in the center of the bunker under a single hanging industrial bulb, his hands resting casually in his pockets, his posture relaxed.
"Enzo," Dominic said pleasantly. "You made good time through the snow."
Enzo paused, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in Dominic’s upright stance and the lack of panic in the room.
"Dominic," Enzo sighed, sounding genuinely regretful. "You should have stayed dead on Lake Shore Drive. It would have been cleaner. Victor is prepared to offer you Palermo. You could have lived out your days in the sun, away from this cold, thankless city."
"Palermo?" Dominic smiled coldly. "The way my father lived out his days in a ditch outside Cicero?"
Enzo’s expression hardened, all warmth draining from his features. "Your father was stubborn. He refused to modernize. He thought honor could buy cement and steel. Victor understood that this city belongs to men who are willing to poison the well to own the water."
"And what did Victor pay you for my head, Enzo?" Dominic asked, taking a slow step forward. "Seven million? You sold forty years of loyalty for the price of a penthouse on the Gold Coast."
"I built this family!" Enzo snarled, losing his aristocratic composure. "I did the dirty work while your father played the statesman and you played the executioner! You brought this girl into our council—an auditor! You insulted every tradition we bled for!"
From the shadows behind the server rack, Harper stepped out, the Glock raised in a steady, two-handed grip, aimed directly at Enzo's chest.
"Tradition didn't bankrupt the port union pensions, Enzo," Harper said, her voice echoing clearly off the concrete walls. "You did. And the Five Families are going to read every line of your offshore bank records in two hours."
Enzo sneered, motioning to his mercenaries. "Kill them all."
Before the men could squeeze their triggers, the overhead fire suppression nozzles exploded—not with water, but with high-pressure extinguishing foam that blinded the mercenaries' tactical goggles.
At the same instant, Luca opened fire from an elevated catwalk, dropping two mercenaries in a hail of precision fire.
Dominic moved like a wraith. He closed the distance in half a second, his blade flashing in the dim light. The third mercenary collapsed, his throat severed. The fourth turned his weapon toward Dominic, but a sharp *crack* echoed through the room.
Harper pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck the gunman in the shoulder, knocking his aim wild. Dominic lunged, slamming the man’s head into the concrete pillar, dropping him instantly into unconsciousness.
Enzo scrambled backward toward the open blast door, drawing a silver revolver from his waistband.
Dominic didn't draw his gun. He walked forward through the drifting foam, his footsteps measured and heavy as judgment. Enzo fired once—the round chipped the concrete wall inches from Dominic’s head—before Dominic seized Enzo’s wrist, twisting the bone until it snapped with a sickening crunch.
The silver revolver clattered to the floor.
Dominic shoved Enzo against the steel blast door, his left hand pinning the older man by the throat, lifting him until his feet kicked uselessly at the air.
"Dominic... please..." Enzo choked out, his face turning purple. "I raised you..."
"You helped kill my father," Dominic whispered, his gray eyes dead and cold as the frozen lake outside. "And you tried to kill the woman who saved me."
Harper stepped forward. "Dominic, wait."
Dominic paused, his fingers still wrapped around Enzo’s throat. He looked at her over his shoulder.
"Don't let him die in the dark," Harper said, her voice steady and lethal. "Let him watch Victor Romano burn first. Let him see his empire fall before he dies."
Dominic looked from Harper to the gasping traitor in his grip. A cold, dark smile touched his lips.
May you like
"You heard the lady, Enzo," Dominic said, dropping the old man to the floor like a sack of wet rags. "Luca, tie him up and throw him in the trunk. We have a gala to attend."
***
