Chapter 7 - The Wall of Flesh and Bone
The grand staircase of the Westchester mansion was shrouded in suffocating darkness.
The faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the downstairs foyer echoed through the silent corridors like a metronome.
I ascended the carpeted stairs on the balls of my feet, avoiding the fifth and eighth steps that always creaked under weight.
A narrow strip of candlelight flickered beneath the door at the end of the long portrait gallery.
That was Donna Elena’s master bedroom.
As I approached the door, the low murmur of voices leaked through the heavy mahogany wood.
"Just mix the vial into the saline drip, Clara," a man’s harsh voice whispered from inside the room.
I recognized that voice instantly; it belonged to Geno, Salvatore’s cold-eyed executioner.
"What if the doctor notices the chemical residue during the autopsy?" a woman’s nervous voice replied.
That was Nurse Clara, the woman Dominic had hired through an agency to care for his ailing mother.
"There won't be an autopsy," Geno said with brutal finality.
"The family doctor will sign a certificate citing congestive heart failure induced by her existing condition."
"Dominic is currently at Pier Fourteen dealing with six federal agencies and a warehouse full of dead men."
"By the time he drives up here tomorrow morning, Donna Elena will already be resting at the funeral parlor."
My heart pounded with such violence I thought my ribs would crack open.
I reached out and slowly twisted the brass knob of the bedroom door.
The door pushed open without a sound.
Donna Elena was propped up on three silk pillows in the center of the four-poster bed.
Her frail hands rested motionless over the lace duvet, her breathing shallow and raspy.
Clara stood beside the intravenous pole, holding a clear glass ampule and a syringe with a trembling hand.
Geno stood at the foot of the bed with his back turned to the doorway, adjusting the silencer on his automatic pistol.
I raised Lorenzo’s snub-nosed revolver with both hands, aiming directly at the center of Geno’s leather jacket.
"Step away from that bed, Geno," I said, my voice echoing with terrifying clarity in the quiet room.
Geno spun around on his heel, his eyes widening in complete disbelief as he saw me standing in the doorway.
He had expected an empty house guarded by his conspirators; he did not expect the Don’s banished wife holding iron.
"Madeline?" Geno hissed, his face contorting into a sneer of pure venom.
"The boss told us you were drowning in the East River after Dominic threw you out."
"Put the weapon on the floor, Geno, or I will put a round through your throat."
Nurse Clara shrieked and dropped the glass ampule onto the Persian carpet, where it shattered into wet fragments.
"You stupid little bitch," Geno growled, his hand tightening on his suppressed weapon.
"You don't know how to pull that trigger."
Geno raised his gun to fire.
I did not hesitate.
I pulled the heavy double-action trigger of the revolver until the hammer struck home.
The concussive blast of the unsuppressed gunshot tore through the bedroom like a bolt of lightning.
The muzzle flash lit the dark ceiling in brilliant white fire.
Geno’s left shoulder jerked violently backward as the heavy lead bullet punched through his flesh.
He stumbled against the mahogany nightstand, cursing through clenched teeth, his weapon discharging wildly into the floorboards.
"Madeline!" Donna Elena’s weak voice cried out from the bed, her eyes fluttering open in terror.
Nurse Clara bolted through the adjoining dressing room door, screaming like a lunatic into the night.
Geno was already recovering, his face twisted in psychotic rage as blood poured down his leather sleeve.
Heavy footsteps thundered up the wooden stairs from the ground floor; the gunshot had alerted the perimeter guards.
"Kill her!" Geno roared toward the hallway, dropping to one knee behind the marble fireplace.
Two armed men in tactical vests burst through the doorway, their submachine guns raised.
There was no time to negotiate.
There was no place to hide Donna Elena’s fragile, immobile body from the spray of automatic fire.
The heavy headboard was wood, not steel; it would offer zero protection against military-grade rounds.
I dropped the empty revolver onto the duvet.
I lunged forward across the mattress, throwing my entire torso directly over Donna Elena’s chest and head.
"Madeline, no! What are you doing, child?" Elena wept, her frail fingers clawing desperately at my sweater.
"Close your eyes, Mama," I whispered against her silver hair.
"Do not look at them."
The room erupted into absolute deafening thunder.
The muzzle flashes of the submachine guns strobed against the walls in rapid, blinding succession.
The first bullet struck my left shoulder, spinning my upper body with the force of a swinging sledgehammer.
The impact felt like a red-hot iron rod driving through muscle, severing nerve endings in an instant.
A second bullet tore through the flesh of my lower back, sending an agonizing shockwave down my spine.
I gasped for air, but my lungs filled with the sharp taste of copper and burning sulfur.
"Madeline!" Donna Elena screamed beneath me, her tears soaking into my cheek.
I locked my arms around her neck with every ounce of strength remaining in my dying body.
The third bullet punched directly through my right shoulder blade, exiting through my collarbone in a shower of scarlet.
The agony was so profound that my vision dissolved into white, searing static.
I did not loosen my grip.
I pressed my forehead into the crook of Elena’s neck, shielding her throat and face with my own skull.
The fourth bullet ripped through my left hip, shattering the bone into fragments that burned like fire.
The fifth bullet caught the side of my ribcage, grazing the pleura of my lung and knocking every remaining breath from my body.
My blood poured over Donna Elena’s lace nightgown in heavy, hot torrents.
I could feel her frail heart beating wildly beneath my chest, terrified but alive.
Not a single piece of lead had touched her skin.
I had become her human shield, taking the full wrath of the Moretti family’s treason into my own flesh.
The gunfire suddenly stopped, replaced by the mechanical clicking of empty magazines.
Geno stood over the bed, his face pale with shock as he stared at the mountain of blood covering the Don’s mother.
"Is the old woman dead?" one of the shooters shouted over the ringing in his ears.
Geno stepped closer, raising his sidearm to finish us both through the back of my head.
May you like
He never got the chance.
From the front gates half a mile down the driveway, the terrifying roar of high-displacement engines split the night.
