Chapter 4 - THE RIVALS STRIKE
-4
The morning sun rose over the New York skyline, casting a pale, cold light across the iron gates of the estate. But inside the mansion, the air felt fundamentally different. The oppressive silence that had defined every room for decades was broken by the faint, distant sound of a child’s laughter echoing from the West Wing.
I stood in my private study on the ground floor, reviewing a ledger of warehouse shipments, when the heavy oak door swung open without a knock.
Paulie, my primary enforcer and head of security—a man whose loyalty I had tested through a dozen gunfights—stepped into the room. His face was carved from granite, but his eyes were darting nervously around the study, carrying the specific tension of a soldier bringing bad news from the front lines.
"Boss," Paulie said, keeping his voice low. "We have a problem."
I didn't look up from the ledger. "Specify."
"It's Vincent Russo," Paulie muttered, his jaw tightening. "You thought he went underground after you found out he was feeding information to the Moretti family eighteen months ago. But our scouts just tracked his digital footprint to a burner phone active in Queens."
The pen in my hand stopped moving.
Vincent Russo. The man who had eaten at my table for eleven years. The man whose mother’s surgery I paid for. The man who had nearly destroyed my entire operation before I discovered his treason and drove him out into the cold.
"Is he alone?" I asked, my voice dropping into that dark, flat register that always made Paulie stand a little straighter.
"No," Paulie shook his head. "He’s backed by the Moretti family's heavy hitters. They've been using the chaos from our recent warehouse transitions to muscle in on our construction contracts in Brooklyn. And Boss... that’s not all."
I finally raised my eyes, locking them onto Paulie's. "Spit it out."
"Word on the street is that Vincent knows about the estate layout," Paulie said, lowering his voice to a gravelly whisper. "He knows the patrol schedules. And according to our informant inside the Moretti camp, Vincent isn't just trying to take our territory anymore. He’s planning a direct hit. He wants to take you out, Daniel."
A cold, humorless smile touched the corners of my mouth.
For eighteen months, I had hunted ghosts. I had assumed Vincent was hiding like a coward across state lines, licking his wounds after I stripped him of his rank and wealth. Instead, he was gathering an army, fueled by a festering, personal hatred.
"When?" I asked.
"Tonight," Paulie replied grimly. "They’re hitting the North Gate during the midnight shift change. They think we’re distracted by corporate restructuring."
I closed the ledger slowly. I stood up, buttoning my suit jacket, and reached for the SIG Sauer P226 resting in the locked drawer of my desk. I checked the magazine, the satisfying clack of the metal slide echoing in the quiet study.
"Paulie," I said, looking my most trusted enforcer dead in the eye. "Double the guard rotation on the West Wing. I want twelve men stationed outside Elena and Sofia's quarters. No one gets past them. Not a mouse, not a ghost, and certainly not Vincent Russo."
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Paulie blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his rough features. "The West Wing, Boss? Why the special detail there? Usually, we fortify the armory and the main vault."
"The vault can take care of itself," I said, my voice hardening into absolute, unyielding steel. "My family is in the West Wing now. And anyone who tries to touch them won't make it off the front lawn."
