Bloodline of the Ruthless: A Mob King's Redemption

The wind screamed across the crane's steel girders, howling like a chorus of damned souls. Lightning split the sky, illuminating Marco’s twisted, frantic face.

"You won't drop it," I said, stepping onto the narrow metal walkway, tossing my shotgun over the railing into the black abyss below. "Because that vial is the only reason you're still drawing breath."

"You think I care about living anymore?" Marco yelled, his voice cracking with madness. "You took everything from me! The empire was supposed to be mine!"

"You were a brother to me, Marco," I said, taking slow, calculated steps across the slick metal grating. "I would have handed you the keys to the kingdom if you had asked. But you targeted an innocent woman. You targeted my daughter."

Marco lunged forward, swinging a heavy steel wrench at my skull.

I ducked beneath the blow, but my footing slipped on the rain-soaked steel. The wrench grazed my shoulder, sending a shock of blinding agony through my bruised torso. Marco tackled me, driving us both against the flimsy safety railing.

We grappled on the edge of oblivion, trading savage blows. Marco gouged his thumbs into my eyes; I countered by driving my knee repeatedly into his fractured ribs. He screamed in agony, dropping the detonator, which clattered down the metal stairs.

With a final, desperate roar, Marco swung the cryogenic case like a weapon, trying to knock me off the platform.

I caught the steel case with my left hand, absorbing the impact, and with my right, I drew my father's ivory-handled combat knife from my boot, driving the blade straight through Marco’s wrist.

Marco shrieked, his fingers releasing the case. I caught the silver cylinder against my chest, securing the vial inside.

Losing his balance, Marco tumbled backward over the snapped safety rail. His hands scrambled frantically, catching the edge of the steel grating, his legs dangling fifty feet above the razor-sharp rocks and churning waves of the Hudson.

"Dominic! Please!" Marco begged, blood pouring from his mouth, his fingers slipping on the wet steel. "Pull me up! In the name of our ten years... please!"

I looked down at him, clutching the antidote against my heart—the medicine that would save the woman I loved and the mother of my child.

"You forgot one thing, Marco," I whispered coldly. "The man you tried to destroy on Fifth Avenue died that day. The only man standing here is a father."

I reached down and peeled his bleeding fingers off the steel girder, one by one.