Chapter 12 - THE FALL OF DARIO
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The gunshot inside the vaulted stone catacombs was deafening.
The heavy round splintered the pine table inches from Don Falcone’s hand, sending wood fragments flying into the air.
Before Dario could adjust his aim, the catacombs erupted into a storm of gunfire.
Dario’s six loyal bodyguards drew their submachine guns, attempting to create a wall of lead to cover their boss’s retreat.
“Elena, get down!” Matteo roared, diving across the cobblestone floor and tackling her behind a massive stone archway.
Bullets chewed into the ancient brick, raining mortar and red dust down on their shoulders.
Luca Ferraro and the South Side tactical team moved with lethal, military precision.
Suppressed rifle fire echoed in rhythmic bursts: two shots, three shots, controlled and devastating.
Dario’s bodyguards fell one by one onto the bloody cobblestones, overwhelmed by superior firepower and tactical positioning.
“Cover the rear tunnel!” Luca shouted over the din, slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle.
“Dario’s heading for the old distillery vents!”
Through the haze of gunsmoke and concrete dust, Elena saw Dario scrambling toward a low iron hatch set into the eastern wall.
He was clutching his bleeding shoulder where a ricochet had grazed him, his face twisted in feral desperation.
Matteo stood up, his silver-plated Beretta held at high-ready.
“Stay with Luca,” Matteo ordered Elena, his eyes burning with a dark, consuming fire.
“No,” Elena said, scrambling to her feet beside him.
“I’m coming with you.”
Matteo looked at her for a fraction of a second, saw the unbreakable steel in her eyes, and nodded once.
“Keep your head low.”
They sprinted through the smoking chamber, leaping over fallen men, and plunged into the narrow eastern tunnel.
The tunnel was pitch-black, illuminated only by the rhythmic muzzle flashes of Dario’s desperate, blind firing ahead.
Water pooled around their boots as the ground sloped downward toward the old fermentation tanks.
They emerged into the massive subterranean distillery room.
Enormous copper vats, forty feet tall and green with patina, stood like silent giants in the cavernous darkness.
High above them, an iron catwalk led toward an emergency escape hatch opening onto the Chicago River bluffs.
Dario was halfway up the iron spiral staircase, clutching the handrail with bloody fingers, wheezing for breath.
“Dario!” Matteo’s voice boomed through the copper tanks like rolling thunder.
Dario stopped on the narrow platform twenty feet above them.
He turned, panting heavily, his back pressed against the rusted metal of the highest vat.
His gun was empty, the slide locked back, clicking uselessly as he pulled the trigger in panic.
He threw the useless weapon down at Matteo’s feet.
“Shoot me then, little brother!” Dario screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria.
“Be the butcher father always said you were!”
Matteo slowly walked to the base of the staircase, his gun lowered at his side.
“Our father was a monster, Dario,” Matteo said, his voice calm and cold.
“And you spent twenty-five years trying to become him.”
“I did what was necessary for the family!” Dario spat, wiping blood from his mouth.
“Isabella was nobody!”
“She was dirt!”
“She didn't deserve to carry the De Luca name!”
Elena stepped out from behind the copper vat, walking slowly to the bottom of the stairs beside Matteo.
The yellow beam of an industrial emergency light caught her face, casting long, sharp shadows across her features.
Dario stared down at her, his eyes widening in horror as if looking at Isabella rising from the grave to claim his soul.
“My mother was more of a De Luca than you ever were,” Elena said, her voice ringing clear through the cavern.
“She knew what honor meant.”
“She knew what love meant.”
“And she died protecting her family, while you are dying in a sewer trying to save your own pathetic skin.”
Dario let out a strangled shriek of rage.
He pulled a serrated hunting knife from his boot and lunged down the stairs toward Elena, blind with madness.
Matteo did not hesitate.
He raised his Beretta and fired three rapid shots into the iron tread beneath Dario’s feet.
The rusted bolts holding the staircase to the copper vat sheared under the concussive force.
The metal stairs gave way with a screech of tearing steel.
Dario fell through the twisted wreckage, crashing heavily onto the concrete floor fifteen feet below.
The knife clattered away into the murky water.
Dario lay on his back among the twisted iron pipes, his breath coming in shallow, bubbling gasps.
Matteo walked over and stood above his dying brother.
Elena stood at his side.
Dario looked up through fading gray eyes, his fingers clawing weakly at the wet concrete.
“Matteo...” Dario choked out, blood spilling from his lips.
“Forgive...”
Matteo stared down at the man who had murdered the only woman he had ever loved.
“Isabella forgives you,” Matteo whispered softly.
“I don't.”
Matteo did not fire another shot.
He turned his back and offered his arm to Elena.
May you like
Behind them, Dario De Luca drew his final, rattling breath in the cold, dark silence of the brewery catacombs.
The reign of terror that had haunted their family for a quarter of a century was over.
