Chapter 17 - Face to Face
Gunfire detonated inside the confined space of the penthouse suite with the force of an artillery barrage.
The four Santoro guards raised their weapons, but Barnaby moved first.
The twelve-year-old mastiff, the dog Vanessa had deemed useless, the dog that had survived decades of bloodshed, surged forward with a terrifying, primal roar. He launched his hundred-and-thirty-pound frame across the marble table, slamming directly into the chest of the lead gunman who was aiming his submachine gun at Clara’s back.
The man shrieked as Barnaby’s heavy jaws locked onto his forearm, driving him crashing into the plate-glass window with enough force to spider-web the reinforced glass.
Luca fired three rapid shots, dropping the second guard before he could bring his weapon to bear. Daniel eliminated the third with a clean double-tap to the chest.
Marco Santoro didn't fight. He spun around, sprinting down the hallway toward the private executive elevator that led to the hotel’s helipad.
"Clara!" Luca yelled through the deafening roar of gunshots and ringing glass.
Clara didn't hesitate. The Beretta was back in her hand. She bolted down the hallway after Marco, her eyes burning with a vengeance twenty-two years in the making.
"Emma, stay behind Daniel!" Luca ordered, his voice raw as he vaulted over the shattered table, following his sister down the corridor.
"Not a chance!" I shouted back, running right behind him, the .38 heavy in my coat pocket, while Barnaby bounded forward, his old legs fueled by pure, unyielding protective fury.
We reached the roof of the Drake Hotel just as the howling winds of Lake Michigan hit us like a physical blow.
The helipad was bathed in swirling fog and the strobe of flashing red warning lights. Rain lashed against our faces, mixing with the sweat and gunpowder that covered our skin. The rotors of an AgustaWestland helicopter were already spinning, creating a deafening tempest of wind that whipped our clothes violently against our bodies.
Marco Santoro was ten feet from the open door of the helicopter, his silver hair plastered to his skull, clutching a heavy leather briefcase containing the offshore keys to the Santoro syndicate.
"Marco!" Clara’s scream cut through the roar of the rotors like a whip.
Marco spun around, pulling a customized desert-camo automatic pistol from his shoulder holster. He didn't aim at Luca. He aimed directly at Clara.
"You ungrateful little bitch," Marco spat over the noise of the engine. "I should have put a bullet in your head in Palermo when you were ten years old!"
He squeezed the trigger.
Time slowed to a crawling, agonizing heartbeat.
Luca threw himself forward, but he was too far. He wasn't going to make it.
I didn't think. I didn't calculate. I lunged forward, throwing my shoulder against Clara’s back, sending both of us crashing onto the wet, metal grate of the helipad as Marco's bullet ricocheted off the steel railing an inch above where Clara’s head had been.
Clara gasped as we hit the wet deck, her dark eyes wide with shock as she looked up at me. She had tried to destroy me. She had insulted me, threatened me, and called me an insignificant stray. And yet, I was lying across her chest, shielding her with my own body.
"Why?" Clara choked out, the wind tearing the word from her lips.
"Because you're his sister!" I screamed over the storm. "And nobody touches this family!"
A split second later, a deafening shot rang out.
Marco Santoro froze.
A clean, bloody hole appeared directly in the center of his chest.
Luca lowered his Kimber, the smoking barrel steady in the howling rain. He walked forward, his boots ringing against the steel deck, until he stood over the dying Sicilian underboss.
Marco fell to his knees, coughing up dark, frothy blood, looking up at the sovereign lord of Chicago.
"The Moretti line... ends in ashes..." Marco gasped, his fingers clawing at the wet metal.
"My family doesn't end in ashes, Marco," Luca said, his voice cold, steady, and merciless. "We rise from them."
Luca pulled the trigger once more.
Marco Santoro collapsed face-down onto the helipad, motionless.
The helicopter pilot, seeing his boss executed in cold blood, immediately pulled the collective, the massive machine lifting off into the swirling fog, abandoning the dead man and fleeing out over the dark waters of Lake Michigan.
The roof went silent, save for the whistling wind and the rhythmic slap of the rain against the steel deck.
Luca turned slowly. He walked toward us, dropping his weapon onto the wet grate, his hands open.
Clara scrambled to her feet, her hands shaking, her breath coming in ragged, weeping gasps. She looked at the dead man who had raised her. She looked at me, sitting soaked on the wet deck, and then she looked at her brother.
"Luca..." she whispered, her voice breaking completely. "I tried to kill you. I tried to burn everything you had."
Luca didn't say a word. He stepped forward, reached out his massive, scarred arms, and pulled his little sister against his chest.
Clara stiffened for a single second—the trained reflex of an assassin who had never known human touch without violence. Then, with a shattering sob that broke through twenty-two years of stone and ice, she buried her face into Luca’s neck, her hands clutching the back of his shirt as she wept like the seven-year-old girl who had been stolen in the dark.
Beside them, Barnaby trotted over, his tail wagging slowly, heavily. He pressed his wet snout against Clara’s knee, letting out a soft, contented whine.
Clara dropped to her knees in the rain, wrapping one arm around Luca’s neck and burying her other hand deep into Barnaby’s fur.
"I’m sorry," she wept into the storm. "I’m so sorry..."
May you like
"You're home, Clara," Luca whispered, his own tears lost in the rain running down his face. "You're finally home."
***
