Chapter 13 - The Debt Paid in Full
Z
By 4:00 AM, the packing plant was quiet. Lorenzo’s men had loaded their casualties into the rear of the sedans, wiped down the surfaces, and set fire to the chemical storage tanks in the basement.
As we drove away, I looked out the rear window of Lorenzo’s Escalade. The Sheepshead Bay packing facility was swallowed in a massive pillar of orange fire, burning away every trace of Kazakhov, Adrian, and the Russian syndicate's hold on the docks.
Lorenzo sat beside me, sipping cognac from a silver flask. "The Bratva won't come back to New York after tonight," he said. "And Adrian... well, the coast guard won't find much in that current."
"Good," I said, staring out at the rain-slicked highway.
"What about you, Dominic?" Lorenzo asked, turning his dark eyes toward me. "The throne is completely empty now. Marco is out of commission for months. The other families are disorganized. If you walked into Little Italy tomorrow, you could take total control of all five boroughs. Nobody could stop you."
I reached into my inner pocket and touched the soft fabric of Miss Rose. The doll was slightly singed at the edges from gunpowder smoke, but she was intact.
"I told you six months ago, Lorenzo," I said quietly. "I retired."
Lorenzo looked at me for a long time, then let out a slow, respectful breath. He raised his silver flask toward me. "To the Ghost of Brooklyn. May you stay dead."
"May I stay dead," I echoed.
An hour later, Lorenzo’s car dropped me off at the Bellevue Hospital private entrance in Manhattan. I walked down the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridors until I reached the guarded room on the fourth floor.
Santino was standing outside the door, his eyes tired and bloodshot. When he saw me walking toward him—drenched, covered in soot, but alive—he let out a long, shuddering breath of relief.
"Boss," Santino whispered.
"How is he?" I asked.
"He came out of surgery an hour ago," Santino said. "The doctors say he'll walk again with a prosthetic. He's awake."
I pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside.
Marco lay in the hospital bed, surrounded by buzzing monitors and IV drips. His face was pale, his left leg heavily bandaged beneath the blanket. But when his eyes met mine, a small, weak grin broke through his pain-lined face.
"You look terrible, Boss," Marco rasped, his voice barely a whisper.
I walked over to the side of the bed and sat in the plastic chair beside him. "You don't look much better yourself, Marco."
"Did you... did you take care of it?" Marco asked, his eyes searching mine.
"It's finished," I said gently. "All of it. Adrian is gone. The Russians are gone. The family's legitimate assets have been transferred into a permanent blind trust managed by your sister."
Marco’s eyes welled with tears. He reached out his bruised hand, and I took it, gripping his fingers firmly.
May you like
"Thank you, Dominic," he whispered.
"No, Marco," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "Thank you. For keeping them safe."
