Chapter 10 - REIGN OF FIRE
I hit the biometric toggle beneath the handle of the titanium briefcase.
ZRRRZT.
A deafening electromagnetic pulse wave burst from the case, expanding instantly across the entire 80th floor. Every light fixture exploded in a shower of blue sparks. The floor-to-ceiling smart glass shattered. The elevator banks died, and every digital radio and laser sight went dark, plunging the grand ballroom into pitch-black chaos lit only by the distant flashes of lightning from the storm outside.
Gunfire erupted blindly in the darkness as Falcone's men panicked.
I moved with the lethal precision of a predator born in the shadows. Slipping the non-metallic ceramic combat knife from my sleeve, I eliminated the two guards near the entrance before they could rack their slides.
I lunged toward the terrace, tackling the bodyguard holding Mia just as he reached the balustrade. We crashed onto the marble. A swift strike to his throat neutralized him permanently.
I caught Mia mid-air, tucking her securely against my chest with my left arm. She wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, burying her face into my collar as bullets cracked through the air around us.
"Elena! Down!" I roared.
I drew a custom ceramic polymer pistol from the concealed lining of my tuxedo trousers and opened fire on Falcone's inner circle. Muzzle flashes illuminated the grand room in violent, rhythmic strobes. Four capos who attempted to charge the terrace fell with clean center-mass shots.
Elena, using the jagged edge of a shattered cognac glass on the floor, severed the ropes around her wrists. She grabbed a fallen assault rifle from a dead guard, rolled behind a marble pillar, and laid down suppressive fire against Falcone's remaining loyalists with ruthless accuracy.
"Carmine! It's over!" I shouted through the smoke.
Falcone, clutching a snub-nosed revolver with trembling hands, backed toward the emergency stairwell, his face pale with terror. All his wealth, all his decades of manipulation had evaporated in sixty seconds of raw violence.
"You're a demon, Alessandro!" Falcone shrieked, aiming his revolver at me. "You were always a demon!"
Before he could pull the trigger, Elena stepped out from behind the pillar and fired a single round, shattering Falcone's right shoulder. The revolver clattered to the floor, and the old don collapsed against the stairwell door, weeping in pathetic defeat.
Sirens wailed in the streets eighty stories below. The city was glowing red and blue as hundreds of federal vehicles converged on the Grand Plaza. The evidence I had broadcasted had landed. Carmine Falcone’s entire syndicate was being dismantled from the top down.
I walked over to Falcone, looking down at the man who had ordered my brother’s death.
"You wanted to end the Duca line," I whispered softly, holding Mia close as she looked down at the defeated don. "Look at her, Carmine. Look at the future you failed to destroy."
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I did not pull the trigger. Death was too easy. Carmine Falcone would spend the rest of his miserable life in a federal supermax facility, watching his name be erased from history.
***
