Chapter 5 - CORNERED BEASTS
Z
Dawn broke over the industrial park like a bruise, casting a sickly purplish light through the high, grimy windows of the safehouse. I hadn't slept a wink. I had spent the night inventorying the armory hidden behind a false wall, loading magazines, checking firing pins, and stripping off my bloody maid’s uniform for a tactical black turtleneck, cargo pants, and combat boots I found in a storage locker. When I looked in the mirror, the quiet, subservient girl was entirely gone, replaced by the ghost of the cartel cleaner’s daughter, staring back with dead, cold eyes.
Vincent had managed a few hours of fitful sleep, but the pain woke him early. Despite the blood loss, the man possessed a freakish, almost unnatural constitution. By 7:00 AM, he was sitting up, a fresh black button-down shirt pulled carefully over his bandaged shoulder, a map of the city spread across a tactical table, his mind spinning a deadly web.
"Julian didn't do this alone," Vincent explained, pointing a heavy finger at the map. "He’s been dead for five years. To orchestrate a coup like this, he needed the capos. He needed the old guard who always preferred his diplomatic, snake-in-the-grass methods to my blunt force. The Rossis were just a distraction. The real power behind Julian’s return has to be the inner circle."
"Who?" I asked, sliding a freshly loaded Glock 19 across the table to him.
He took the gun, checking the chamber with one hand. "Vinnie 'The Razor' Moretti. He controls the unions, the docks, and the dirty politicians. If Julian is back, he went to Moretti first. But Moretti is paranoid. He never leaves his restaurant in the North End, La Bella. It’s a fortress. If we can get to Moretti, we can find out where Julian is operating from."
"You want to walk into a mob fortress while you're half-dead?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "That sounds like a suicide mission, Costanza."
"It’s not a suicide mission if they don't expect a ghost to walk through the front door," Vincent countered, a dangerous glint in his eye. "Julian thinks I bled out in the woods. He thinks he won. Moretti will be comfortable. Arrogant. We hit them before they realize the war isn't over."
I didn't argue. In the criminal underworld, audacity was often the best armor.
By noon, we were parked in a stolen, unassuming sedan down the street from La Bella. The restaurant looked completely normal to a civilian, but to a trained eye, it was a heavily guarded compound. Two men in sharp suits stood smoking outside the entrance, their eyes scanning the street with aggressive paranoia. Another man sat in a parked car across the alley.
"Front door is suicide," I muttered, peering through the rain-streaked windshield. "What about the kitchen?"
"Delivery entrance in the back," Vincent said. "Heavy steel door. But the meat supplier usually drops off at one o'clock. We slip in when the door opens."
We moved through the torrential rain, sticking to the shadows of the alleyway. The cold water masked our approach as we waited by the dumpsters. Exactly at 1:05 PM, a large refrigerated truck backed down the alley. A man in an apron opened the heavy steel door from the inside, shouting something in Italian to the driver.
That was our window.
I moved first, a shadow darting behind the truck. Before the man in the apron could blink, I had the barrel of my suppressed pistol pressed hard against the base of his spine. "Not a word," I hissed, shoving him forward into the kitchen. Vincent followed, locking the heavy door behind us. The kitchen staff froze, their eyes widening in terror at the sight of a heavily armed woman and a bleeding, furious mafia boss.
"Everyone out," Vincent growled. The chefs and prep cooks scattered like roaches, fleeing through the side fire exit.
We moved toward the swinging doors that led to the private dining room where Moretti conducted his business. But we had severely underestimated Moretti’s paranoia. As we pushed through the doors, the sound of a pump-action shotgun racking echoed through the hall.
"It's a trap!" I screamed, shoving Vincent violently to the side just as a blast of buckshot shredded the wooden door frame where his head had been a second ago.
Julian’s men hadn't just expected us; they were waiting for us. The hallway erupted into absolute chaos. I hit the floor, rolling behind a heavy mahogany credenza as bullets tore through the drywall, raining plaster and wood splinters down on me. I counted four shooters. High-powered rifles. Professional mercenaries, not street thugs.
"Suppressing fire!" I yelled to Vincent, who was pinned behind a heavy oak pillar. He nodded, leaning out and emptying half a magazine down the hall. The deafening roar of his .45 forced the shooters to duck, giving me the half-second I needed. I popped up, sighted my weapon with brutal efficiency, and fired three times. Two men dropped, one clutching his throat, the other taking a round straight through the center mass.
But a third man flanked us, bursting through a side door. He raised his weapon at Vincent’s blind spot. I didn't have time to aim. I threw my empty gun at his face, launching myself across the floor, driving a tactical knife I pulled from my boot straight into the gap between his tactical vest and his neck. He choked, collapsing into a heap.
The fourth man panicked, turning to run back toward the private room, but Vincent stepped out from cover, his face a mask of pure, murderous rage, and shot the man in the kneecap. The mercenary screamed, crashing into the wall.
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The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the groans of the wounded man and the ringing in our ears. The ambush had failed, but it proved one terrifying thing: Julian was always one step ahead.
Vincent walked slowly toward the wounded mercenary, his limp pronounced, his gun aimed squarely at the man’s head. "You have exactly five seconds to tell me where my brother is," Vincent whispered, a dark, terrifying promise in his voice, "or I’m going to start peeling you like a grape."
