Chapter 6 - THE FALL OF SALVATORE
The beam of four million lumens pinned Salvatore and his mercenaries to the wet stone like insects under a magnifying glass.
The deafening, rhythmic thrum of twin turbine blades dropped out of the storm clouds. A Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, entirely unmarked and painted in radar-absorbent matte black, hovered fifty feet above the terrace of 432 Park Avenue. The rotor wash was an absolute hurricane, tearing the cashmere coat from Salvatore’s shoulders and whipping the rain into a blinding horizontal spray.
Salvatore stumbled backward, his hand flying up to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. "What is this?! Where did they come from?!"
He had forgotten who controlled the airspace over the five boroughs. He had forgotten that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the private aviation corridors of Teterboro, and the tactical aviation contractors of Long Island all answered to the same parent board.
My board.
"Drop your weapons!" a voice boomed through the helicopter's external PA system, amplified until it vibrated the reinforced glass of the skyscraper.
On the rooftop above the terrace, four tactical marksmen from my secondary private detail appeared along the parapet, their laser sights painting brilliant crimson dots across the chests of the two Balkan mercenaries flanking my uncle.
The mercenaries looked at the red dots on their sternums, looked at the hovering war machine twenty yards away, and made the only rational calculation available to men paid by the hour: they dropped their MP5s onto the wet tiles, raised their hands, and dropped to their knees.
"Cowards!" Salvatore screamed, his voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical shriek. "Pick them up! Shoot him! I paid you three million euros! Shoot him!"
The men didn't move an inch.
Salvatore spun around, his eyes wild, frantic, realizing that the trap hadn't been set for me—it had been closed around him from the second his Gulfstream touched down in New Jersey. In a final, suicidal spasm of desperation, he reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling a silver snub-nosed revolver and leveling it directly at Lily.
"If I burn, you burn with me, Dante!" he shrieked.
He never got the chance to pull the trigger.
I didn't aim for his chest. I didn't aim for his head. I brought the Sig Sauer up in a single, fluid motion and fired two rounds directly into his right kneecap.
The heavy 9mm rounds shattered the joint into bone fragments and ruined cartilage.
Salvatore let out a curdling, high-pitched scream of agony as his leg folded beneath him. The revolver slipped from his numb fingers, sliding across the slick stone toward my feet. He collapsed onto his side, clutching his ruined knee, weeping into the rain, his aristocratic arrogance disintegrating into pathetic, shuddering sobs.
I walked toward him, my boots clicking rhythmically against the stone, Lily still cradled securely against my chest, her face tucked safely beneath my coat so she wouldn't see the carnage.
I stopped six inches from Salvatore’s head, looking down at him the way a judge looks at an insect awaiting extermination.
"Please," Salvatore gasped, blood and rainwater bubbling on his lips as he looked up at me through tears of blinding pain. "Dante... please. Blood... we are blood. Your father was my brother. You can't kill your own blood."
"You lost the right to that name the day you threatened a pregnant woman in Georgia," I said, my voice dropping so low that not even the roar of the helicopter could drown it out. "You lost the right to breathe the moment you pointed a gun at my daughter."
"Dante... please..."
I looked over at Marcus, who was leaning against the colonnade, a field dressing already applied to his shoulder by the lead operator from the Black Hawk who had fast-roped onto the deck.
"Marcus," I ordered.
"Sir?"
"Put him on a private transport to Florence. Strip him of every asset, every bank account, every passport. Hand him over to the Italian authorities under the Red Notice warrant we filed three months ago. He will spend the rest of his miserable life in a maximum-security cell in Poggioreale."
"No!" Salvatore screamed, clawing at my pant leg with muddy fingers. "Not Poggioreale! Dante, that is a death sentence! Kill me here! Kill me like a man!"
I pulled my boot away from his grip, not even deigning to look at him as two tactical officers dragged him backward across the terrace toward the service elevator.
"Dante?" Lily’s voice emerged from beneath my coat, tiny and hesitant.
I instantly dropped to one knee on the covered portion of the terrace, shielding her from the wind as the helicopter ascended back into the storm clouds, its spotlight switching off, leaving the terrace in peaceful, rain-washed darkness.
I peeled back the wool lapel. Her face was pale, her silver-gray eyes wide, but there were no tears left on her cheeks. She looked at me with an awe that made my chest ache with an agony far more intense than any bullet could inflict.
"Is the bad man gone?" she whispered.
"Yes, Lily," I said, gently brushing a wet curl from her forehead. "He will never come back. I promise you."
She looked down at my hand—the hand that was still holding the heavy steel pistol. Slowly, with that innocent curiosity that defies the darkest violence of the adult world, she reached out her tiny hand and touched the cold slide of the gun.
"You didn't leave," she said softly.
The words hit me like a physical blow.
"No, Lily," I choked out, my voice thick with an emotion that threatened to break my composure entirely. "I didn't leave. And I am never going to leave."
Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone in my breast pocket vibrated.
I pulled it out with trembling fingers, looking at the display.
DR. HARRISON - COLUMBIA PRESBYTERIAN.
I swiped the screen and brought it to my ear. "Harrison. Report."
"Mr. Moretti," the surgeon’s voice crackled through the line, completely exhausted, but carrying a tremor of pure, unadulterated triumph. "The infusion is complete. The ventricular rhythm stabilized twenty minutes ago. The tissue response exceeded our best projections. Naomi is breathing on her own."
A breath I felt like I had been holding for five long years finally rushed out of my lungs, leaving my head spinning with relief.
"She's in recovery, Mr. Moretti," Harrison continued. "And she's asking for her daughter. And... she’s asking for you."
May you like
I looked down at Lily, whose small arms wrapped around my neck once more, resting her chin on my shoulder as the first golden rays of dawn began to fracture the storm clouds over the Atlantic.
"Let's go, Lily," I murmured, standing up with my daughter in my arms. "Your mommy is waiting."
