Chapter 2 - The Gun at My Skull
"Drop it, Vanessa!" My voice roared through the cavernous room, carrying the full, terrifying authority of a man who commanded hundreds of killers across the Eastern seaboard.
Vanessa froze mid-strike, her knuckles white around the bloodied brass angel. She slowly turned her head toward me. There was no terror in her wide hazel eyes, no shame, not even a flicker of regret. Instead, a chilling, venomous smile spread across her sculpted lips. It was a smile I had never seen before—cynical, depraved, and entirely triumphant.
"You're late, darling," she purred, lowering the statuette just inches above my mother’s trembling silver hair. "I expected you five minutes ago. Your driver must be losing his nerve."
"Step away from my mother," I growled, drawing my custom Kimber .45 from my tailored jacket. Every muscle in my body coiled to pull the trigger and put a hollow-point through her forehead. The woman I bought emeralds for, the woman who whispered sweet promises in my sheets every night, was nothing more than a rabid dog. "Step away, or I paint this entire wall with your brain."
"I wouldn't twitch another muscle if I were you, Dominic."
The words didn't come from Vanessa. They came from directly behind my right ear.
The cold, unforgiving steel of a heavy-caliber muzzle pressed hard against my temple. The mechanical click of a hammer cocking back sounded like thunder in the cavernous silence.
I didn't need to look. I knew the distinctive rasp of the slide, the scent of expensive sandalwood cologne, and the steady, unhurried breath of the man behind the sights. It was Dante Rossi. Dante was not just my second-in-command; he was my blood brother in every way that mattered. We had crawled out of the South Bronx gutters together, bled in back alleys, and built the Vance syndicate corpse by corpse. He had been my best man for the wedding.
"Dante?" I breathed, my voice dropping to a deadly, incredulous rasp. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Evolution, boss," Dante whispered with a calm that chilled my marrow. "The old lion gets soft. You let your heart rule your business. Spending twenty million on retirement villas and charity foundations for your mother while the Moretti family is swallowing our shipping docks whole. You lost the hunger."
"You sold me out to the Morettis?" I whispered, rage searing through my veins like molten lead.
"Worse," Vanessa laughed, stepping delicately over my mother’s sobbing form in her designer heels. She walked right up to me, reached out with a manicured hand, and stroked my jaw with mocking tenderness. "Dante and I have been laughing at you behind your back for eighteen months, Dominic. Who do you think handed the port manifests to the federal task force last month? Who do you think orchestrated the warehouse raid in Brooklyn? You built the Vance empire, but Dante and I are going to run it."
"You touch my mother again, and I swear to God Almighty, I will flay you alive," I spat, my jaw aching from clenching so hard.
"Your mother is a senile liability who overheard too much in the conservatory yesterday," Dante muttered behind me, pushing the gun barrel deeper into my flesh, breaking the skin. "Drop the .45, Dominic. On the floor. Right now. Or you watch your mother choke on her own blood before I blow your skull across the wallpaper."
My fingers tightened around the checkered grip of my pistol. Every instinct screamed to spin, take the bullet in the shoulder, and snap Dante’s neck. But my eyes darted down to my mother. Sophia was shaking uncontrollably, clutching her bruised ribs, her frail chest heaving. If Dante fired, his stray rounds would shred her.
"Do it, Dom," Dante commanded. "Three... two..."
Slowly, deliberately, I opened my fingers. The Kimber .45 fell to the hardwood floor with a dull clatter.
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Vanessa smiled wide, kicking the weapon beneath a velvet sofa. Then she turned back toward my mother, lifting the brass statuette once more. "Now that the king is dethroned, let's tie up the loose ends."
Just as Dante shifted his weight to deliver the fatal blow to the back of my head, a desperate scream tore from the hallway: "Mr. Vance, look at the screen!"
