Chapter 3 - WHISPERS IN THE PENTHOUSE
"Move! Now!" I barked, grabbing Elena Vance by the collar of her torn denim jacket and hauling her to her feet.
The baby, Mia, let out a soft whimper as the violent movement jostled her, but her tiny fingers remained firmly hooked into my silk tie. Carrying an eight-month-old infant in one arm while dragging a critically injured woman with the other was suicidal for an underworld kingpin, but leaving my dead brother’s flesh and blood to be butchered was something I would burn down New York before allowing.
We crossed into my private office just as the three elevator doors chimed open behind us. Heavy tactical boots spilled out into the corridor, accompanied by the cold, calculated clicks of automatic rifles.
I slammed the four-inch reinforced titanium door shut, sliding the triple electromagnetic deadbolts into place.
"Commence lockdown protocol Omega," I spoke into the biometric console beside the frame. The smart-glass windows blackened instantly, turning the penthouse into an impenetrable bunker.
I laid Elena onto the leather Chesterfield sofa. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse erratic. The utility closet ambush had broken two of her ribs, and a deep laceration ran across her forearm. Mia immediately scrambled up onto the leather, placing her tiny palm against Elena’s bruised cheek, babbling soft, incomprehensible sounds of comfort.
"Who else knows you came here?" I asked, pulling an emergency trauma kit from behind a framed Caravaggio painting.
"Nobody," Elena whispered, wincing as I wiped antiseptic over her arm. "Matteo left me an encrypted drive before he died. He told me that if the shadow cartel ever found our safehouse, the only place in North America with the firepower to survive them was inside your vault. He swore you were a monster... but a monster who would never let anyone desecrate his own blood."
I paused, needle and suture thread in hand. Her words cut deep. Matteo had always hated the violence of my empire, choosing exile over the syndicate. Yet when death came knocking, he had bet everything on the terrifying brutality of his older brother.
"Who ordered the hit on Matteo?" I asked, my voice deadly calm.
"Marco Rossi," Elena replied, looking directly into my eyes without fear. "Your right-hand man. He sold the Zurich routes to the Genovese coalition. He staged Matteo's death because Matteo uncovered the offshore laundering scheme. And Marco is the one who gave the strike team access codes to this floor tonight."
Before I could reply, the main office monitor on my mahogany desk flickered to life. The feed displayed the encrypted video link with Zurich that I had left open. On the screen was not my Swiss banking partner, but Marco Rossi, sitting in the lobby security room downstairs, surrounded by armed mercenaries.
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"Alessandro," Marco sneered through the speaker, a sinister smirk playing across his scarred face. "I see you met your lovely family. Enjoy the reunion while it lasts, boss. Because in ten minutes, I'm cutting the building's oxygen reserves."
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