By the time I near the second story of the building, I can hear the sounds of footsteps in the courtyard. Someone must have figured out I’m not in sight, and they’re sending men to look for me. I can’t be exposed any longer than I have to be.
I look to the nearest window. It has a balconette, just what I need to get a grip. But the window is shut, of course. Wrapping my legs around the tree, I slip my jacket off and toss it to the balconette. It hangs there, and clad in nothing more on my torso than a white shirt stained with blood, I leap after it.
I catch the railing and haul myself up, getting a sturdy foothold. I take my jacket and ball it up over my fist like a glove, and without hesitating, I throw my fist into the window by the handle inside.
The panel smashes to pieces, and I let my glass-ridden jacket fall to the ground as I unlock the window and push it open, climbing inside. I’ve made a lot of noise, and I need to get to cover fast.
“East wing guest room, move!” I hear from down the hall, and the sound of feet approaching tells me I have only a few seconds. It’s a lavish room, decorated in true Sicilian style with lavish rugs and exposed stonework. I don’t bother gathering my jacket. I make my way to the door and press myself against the wall to the side and wait, drawing my knife.
I let the first man rush in unharmed, but when the second follows, I turn my knife downward and drive it into the base of his skull. Before his comrade can so much as turn around, I shove the dying man’s body into him, throwing him off-balance.
The two of them topple to the ground, and I dive onto the living man and put the knife to his throat, a finger to my lips as he glares up at me with pure hatred in his eyes.
“Will you be as stubborn as the corpses outside?” I ask in a hushed tone.
“I don’t talk to dead men,” he hisses back. “That’s what you and your whole family are.”
“To hell with the Costa,” I say, “this is personal business. Tell me where Serena is and I’ll let you get out of here.”
“Probably moaning through Lorenzo’s co-” he tries to say, but I silence him with my blade, and I cover his mouth as he convulses under me.
I stand to my feet over the two dead men. The soldiers in this compound aren’t going to fess up—these must be the men who made the Cleaners a force to be feared. Still, there aren’t as many as I would have expected.
That’s a shame. If they had more men, the odds might be more even. That’s cockiness speaking, but it’s all I have left at this point. That, my knives and some bullets.
I stow my knife and draw a gun out, holding it at the ready as I move out into the hallway.
The manor is lavish, but I can tell it’s new. There’s no soul to this place yet, and everything looks too clean to be authentic. Whether the Abruzzis are new or old money doesn’t matter to me, but the place reeks of lavish spending and bad taste.
I make my way down a long hallway toward what I can see to be a set of marble stairs. I’m about halfway down when I hear the sounds of footsteps coming up fast. Cursing, I kick open the door to a room on the side and take cover.
As soon as I do, a terrified woman inside screams and covers her mouth as she staggers back. I don’t bother trying to hush her—my kicking down the door already let them know I’m here. Judging by how she’s dressed, I’d guess she’s a cleaning lady. I gesture for her to get down, and she nods, moving further back into the room and crouching down.
I use the doorframe to stabilize my arm as I wait for the men to come into sight. Three of them come up the stairway, and I wait for all three to show themselves before I start firing. My first shot catches one in the heart, and as he falls back down the stairs with a cry of pain, the others move for cover in side-rooms of their own. I get a shot into one of their shoulders before they dig themselves in safely, but when they start shooting from cover, I know this is a useless battle. I’ll just waste bullets while reinforcements have time to get here.
My jaw set, I’m thinking of my options when I hear a voice from behind me.
“Sir!” the domestic whispers loudly. I fire off a couple shots down the hall before I glance back at her. She’s standing beside a panel in the wall that I would have missed, but she finds a subtle handle on it and pulls it aside, revealing a small staircase leading up and down. My eyes widen.
“This is a laundry room,” she hisses, “stairs go up and down to other servants’ quarters. Take it up, these men won’t find you.”
Hardly able to believe my eyes, I fire off another shot down the hall before I move over and look down on her. “Why are you helping me?”
“These men are monsters,” she says, “whatever you’re here for, it can’t be worse than them. I’ll take the stairs down, they won’t catch me.”
I give a curt nod. “Lorenzo’s room, where is it?”
“Three floors up from here,” she says, “it won’t take you to his room, but close.”
I glance at the door, then nod. “Thank you,” I grunt before squeezing my body into the narrow opening. True to her word, while shots ring out in the hallway, she heads down the stairs and closes the panel behind us. I draw my knife and start my climb.
The stairs are surprisingly quiet. They have to be, if service workers are supposed to be seen and not heard, I would guess.
I climb past several panels that look like doorways, counting them as I go. When I reach the third, I put my ear to it before carefully sliding it open. Sure enough, I find myself in what looks like a utility room, and the door at the far end of the little space is closed, but I can hear the sounds of walking footsteps and voices outside it.
I move carefully up to it, swapping my knife for my gun, and I put my ear close to the door.
“I don’t care if the second floor looks clear, sweep it again, he didn’t vanish into thin goddamn air,” a scruffy voice says. I don’t hear a response, so I gather that he’s on a cellphone. “No, you’ll get him to the doctor after we have this God damned ordeal dealt with. I want this fucker’s head on a plate before Don Abruzzi gets wind of anything that goes on here, understand? Because if word gets out, he’ll have my head after I get yours.” I hear the beep of the call ending.
I take that as my cue, and I simply push the door open, gun raised at the man now about three feet from me.
He’s a middle-aged man with a tired face and graying hair. Despite his age, the muscles under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt tell me this guy can pull his weight. A capo, no doubt. These Cleaners were just shaping up to be a real crime family.
“Son of a bitch,” he mutters, letting his phone fall to the ground as he raises his hands.
“Let’s make this easy,” I say in a low tone in Italian.
“You went past ‘easy’ when you drove a fuckin’ sedan into our front yard, you cock-sucker,” he says in a grizzled voice, speaking in the same language. He has a tired look in his eyes, but they’re still the eyes of a killer. “I knew Lorenzo was in over his head going after the De Laurentis girl, but shit, kid, I gotta hand it to you, you know how to make waves.”
I frown at him and set my jaw. “And what do you think you know about Serena?”
He gives a scoffing laugh. “Look at me, you think I’m one of these bloodthirsty young fucks? I know who she is. She’s mafia royalty. I know who her dad was—he was the guy who used to run the Costas you work for. I know there was a power struggle, and her daddy got taken out by the guys who are your bosses now. And I heard she was next on the chopping block, until someone intervened.”
My eyes narrow. The old guy is looking at me meaningfully. As much as I’ve tried to bury the past, it can’t stay hidden forever. But it’s strange to hear it spoke out loud again after so long.
“And I’m willing to bet that someone was you,” he says. “You think you can bring down the whole Abruzzi family over some spoiled mafia princess? You’re sticking your neck out under a big sword, kid.”
“Enough,” I growl, raising my gun.
“Not so fast
,” he says quickly, holding his hands up higher. “Lorenzo’s room is right down this hall. One gunshot, and they’ll know something’s up too close for comfort. That door’s locked and I’ve got the key. You really think you got time to make it down there and unlock the door before Lorenzo puts a bullet in your girl’s pretty head?”
“You look like an old-school kind of guy. Is it a duel you want?”
“Fuck that,” he half-laughs, “look at you, you look like Rambo just crawled fresh out of ‘Nam.” He stretches his arms out to the side. “Look, you got lucky, kid. Disarm me, and I’ll unlock that door and disappear. Even if Lorenzo kills your ass, I’m a dead man to Don Abruzzi.”
I don’t like it, but I don’t have time to bargain. I give a sharp nod and approach him with my gun trained on his head. He turns around and lets me remove the guns from his person, and he walks forward toward the door.
My eyes follow his hand to his coat pocket as he pulls out a cardkey and hands it to me. I take it, and he whirls around to face me as he steps backward. He gives Lorenzo’s door a final glance, then nods to me before walking backward to the stairs and moving down them, out of sight.
As I hold the key near the door, knife in my other hand, I take a breath and say a quick prayer in my head to whoever might be listening. The door lock clicks, and a little green light flashes. I drop the key and throw the door open.
“The fuck do you think you’re-” comes Lorenzo’s voice as he turns around, and the scene I walk in on freezes in place for half a second in time. At the far end of the room, Lorenzo stands with his shirt off, half-kneeling on the bed where I see Serena and Rafaela laying, eyes widening at the sight of me, Serena’s mouth falling open and tears coming to her eyes. On either side of the door I just burst through are two guards, each holding guns.
But I’ve burst in on enough meetings to be ready for that, and I move before they can gather themselves.
I go to the right first, one hand grabbing the wrist of the hand that holds his gun and pointing it down. The gun goes off just before I slash his throat with one quick motion and roll around his body, just in time for the man on the left to shoot. The guard’s body takes the shot for me, and I have enough time to flip the blade around and throw it at him. The blade sinks into his eye, and his hand squeezes as his body convulses, another shot ringing through the room before he falls to the ground.
I draw my spare knife and point it at Lorenzo, standing there covered in blood, chest breathing heavily, and all the fury I’ve ever known burning in my eyes at the sight of what he was about to do to my girl and to Rafaela.
“Get away from them, Lorenzo,” I snarl, “I’ve got the blood of half this compound on my hands, and I’m not leaving without yours.”
Lorenzo moves fast, diving for the dresser and seizing a long hunting knife mounted on it, and he turns to face me. His eyes are wild, and there’s a smile on his face.
“I was wondering if you’d make it,” he says, readying himself in a stance. “I love a good fight before I take a woman.”
I have no more patience for words, and I lunge forward at him. He moves faster than I thought he could, and he dodges me and thrusts up toward my gut. I roll with the attack, and it only grazes my side. I bring my fist around and feel it connect with his jaw in payback, and he staggers back.
Lorenzo spits blood, and he charges me again. This time, I’m ready for him. I feign like I’m going to move in to tackle him, and when he brings his knife in to catch me from above, I move to the side and bring my knee up into his gut.
He groans, but he keeps his momentum and wraps his arms around my waist to bring me to the ground. We hit the wooden floor together, and I immediately try to get on top of him, wary of the thrusting knife. We’re evenly matched as we struggle. One moment, I’m about to get on top of him and bring my knife to his throat, and the next, he’s got his elbow in my gut and is worming his way away before I get my hands on him again, trading blows and grappling with each other.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something—Serena. She’s crawling out of bed and is moving toward what I recognize as Lorenzo’s coat on the ground, and she starts digging through it hastily.
But I can’t focus on it too long—whatever Serena’s doing, I don’t want Lorenzo to put his attention on it. I pull him up to his knees with me and bring my head down on his, hard, dazing both of us before I stagger back and he tries to jump up, shaky on his feet.
“Is that how you learned to fight in the Bronx?” he laughs, spitting blood to the side as he tries to refocus his eyes. “If that’s the best you’ve got then- AAAAGHHHH!”
Lorenzo shrieks in pain and falls to his knee as Serena scrambles away from his legs, blood pouring from the Achilles tendon she just cut. In her right hand, her knife Passerotta glistens with its first ruby-red blood. I see the telltale look of an adrenaline rush in her eyes, and when he opens his eyes in a rage to slash behind him at her, she skillfully dodges out of the way, just like I taught her.
He struggles to his good leg to come at her again, but in the millisecond he turns his back on me, I fly at him, and I catch him from behind, putting my knife to his throat.
“Tell the devil there’s more where you came from,” I growl before my knife rips through his throat, opening his neck to let hot blood run over my arms as Serena watches the life fade from Lorenzo Abruzzi.
I release him, and his body crumples to the ground, blood pooling around him.
For a moment, we just stand there. My eyes move from Lorenzo, then up to Serena standing before me and Rafaela looking stunned on the bed. The next moment I step forward and Serena is already halfway to meeting me, our arms locking as I hug her tight to me.
“You’re alive!” Serena says through a sob, “Luca, I thought you were dead!”
“Hell wouldn’t keep me away from you, passerotta mia,” I say, my heart soaring as we’re reunited, breathing the same air and feeling each other’s warmth once again. Just as it should be.
But we don’t have time for a proper reunion. I look between Rafaela and Serena. “Are either of you hurt?”
“No,” Rafaela says, her smile of relief fading as she stands up from the bed, looking at the door as if making sure nobody was coming. “Our egos are a little bruised, but seeing these bastards on the ground makes up for it, I think.”
“Luca, he was going to-” Serena starts, but she’s unable to finish as I hug her to me. I know just what kinds of memories this dragged back up for her.
“It’s over now,” I say reassuringly, holding her close. “It’s all over. I told you, Serena, as long as I’m alive, nobody will hold you against your will.”
Serena smiles warmly up at me, but I can tell she’s shaken badly. These aren’t the kinds of scars that heal overnight.
“We need to get out of here,” I say, nodding to the door. “There’s still a compound full of soldiers who don’t know their boss is dead.”
“I got Lorenzo’s keys,” Rafaela says, holding up Lorenzo’s jacket. “Any ideas how to get out of here?”
“A worker showed me a way up here,” I say, remembering the cleaning lady heading downstairs. “And I have a feeling we can take it down to somewhere that won’t be crawling with gunmen. Stay close to me and move as quietly as you can.”
It’s nearly twenty minutes later that we’ve peeled out of the compound in Lorenzo’s own car, out the back road and to civilization where it’s too crowded to chase us. Besides, with Lorenzo dead and his capo gone, the organization in the compound is shot to hell.
We make it out without trouble, and before we know it, it’s like we’re in a totally different world.
I’m driving, my bloodstained shirt drying in the sunlight as the luxury sports car rolls down the roads just outside New York City proper. Serena sits in the passenger’s seat, her legs close together as she holds her arms, looking out the window with a dreamy look in her eyes. Rafaela is in the back seat, looking up at the ceiling with a look of disbelief
on her face.
Back in the city, the abrupt change in scenery feels jarring. It’s like moving from a warzone to civilization in the blink of an eye, like waking up from a nightmare.
“I just can’t believe it,” Serena finally says softly, turning her head to look at the road in front of us.”
“What?” I’m starting to feel twinges of pain as my adrenaline starts to fade, letting my wounds take their toll, but I’m not about to show pain right now.
“That we made it out of there,” says Serena. “I know this is like, a regular Saturday for you, Luca, but it just doesn’t feel real.”
“Maybe a slightly more exciting Saturday than usual,” I say with a smile.
That earns a smile from her, but she shakes her head. “I don’t know why, but I just had this sense of things coming to an end when we got taken. Rafaela, if you hadn’t been there with me…”
“You’d have been alright, give yourself some credit,” Rafaela says with the kind of smile only a good friend can give. “You’re the one who cut that fucker’s legs out from under him.”
“You two handled yourselves well,” I say, and I mean it. “Not many people could keep it together under so much pressure.”
Serena is quiet for a moment, but there’s a soft smile on her face. After about a minute, she speaks again. “So, what happens now?”
“Now,” I say, getting off the highway, “I’m taking you to a safehouse. Both of you. You’re going to need to vanish for a few weeks while we figure out where things stand with the Abruzzi. Best case scenario, they’re willing to call a truce while the Don buries Lorenzo and mourns. I never bet on the best case, but this is a blow the Cleaners won’t recover from anytime soon.”
“No,” Rafaela says, raising her eyebrows. “It’s a hell of a blow to their spirits, too. You might have stopped a much longer, bloodier war here, Luca.”
“No offense, Rafaela,” I say honestly, “but the only family I’m interested in protecting is my own, not the mobsters we work for.” I smile at Serena, who returns it, and Rafaela grins.
[Killer 01.0] Killer for Hire Page 22
