Chapter 10 - The Wolf At The Gates
The great stone courtyard of the Hudson estate was swept by a freezing northern wind that rustled the bare branches of the surrounding oak trees.
Six of Dominic’s tactical security operators stood along the elevated stone balustrade, their heavy carbines held at the low-ready position, black balaclavas concealing their faces.
At the center of the gravel turnaround, three black Lincoln Town Cars sat idling, their chrome grilles spattered with road mud from the journey through New Jersey.
Dominic walked out onto the broad front terrace, his hand resting firmly on the small of my back, guiding me forward with an unhurried, commanding grace.
I held my chin high, the eight-carat diamond on my hand catching the gray morning light, though beneath the soft cashmere of my ivory dress, my heart was hammering like a trapped bird.
The rear door of the lead Lincoln swung open.
Julian Vane stepped out into the gravel.
He looked precisely as he had in the surveillance photographs, but the reality of his physical presence was vastly more repulsive.
He was a tall, angular man in his late forties, wearing a tailored camel-hair coat that smelled faintly of cheap clove cigarettes and wet leather.
The jagged white scar running from his eye to his jaw pulled his mouth into a perpetual, mocking sneer.
Behind him stood two massive enforcers, their hands tucked deep inside the pockets of their dark leather jackets.
Vane looked up at the stone terrace, his small, dark eyes scanning Dominic before landing squarely on me.
A slow, sickening grin spread across his scarred face.
"Well, well," Vane called out, his voice a raspy, tobacco-cured drawl that echoed off the stone walls. "The rumors from the morning papers are actually true. Dominic Salvatore has taken in a stray from the gutter."
The air around us seemed to drop ten degrees.
I felt the muscles in Dominic’s back tighten beneath his charcoal suit, yet his expression remained as calm and smooth as frozen lake water.
"You are standing on private ground, Julian," Dominic said, his voice quiet, rich, and utterly lethal. "And you have precisely ninety seconds to state your business before my men dismantle your convoy for scrap metal."
Vane chuckled, taking a slow step forward onto the lowest step of the terrace, completely ignoring the red laser dots that instantly converged on the center of his chest from the roofline.
"I came to deliver a wedding gift, Dominic," Vane said, reaching inside his coat with deliberate, exaggerated slowness.
Luca’s hand snapped toward his holster, but Dominic raised two fingers, stopping his lieutenant in his tracks.
Vane drew out a clear plastic evidence bag and held it up by two fingers.
Inside the bag was a small, silver pendant on a broken chain—the silver St. Christopher medal I had given my brother Marcus for his sixteenth birthday.
The breath vanished from my lungs in a sickening, suffocating rush.
"Marcus..." I whispered, taking an involuntary half-step forward before Dominic’s hand caught my waist, anchoring me firmly against his side.
"Your little brother sends his warmest regards, Mrs. Salvatore," Vane sneered, his eyes glittering with malicious triumph. "He’s currently resting in a very comfortable cellar in Newark. Not much light, but the concrete is dry enough."
He tossed the plastic bag onto the gravel steps, where the silver medal landed with a sharp, hollow click.
"Don Morretti sends a very simple message," Vane continued, turning his gaze back to Dominic. "Twelve million dollars in bearer bonds, plus the encrypted ledger containing our personal banking keys. Delivered to the Brooklyn Navy Yard by midnight tonight."
"And if the delivery is late?" Dominic asked smoothly, his voice showing neither anger nor surprise.
"Then the boy gets returned to his big sister in three separate cardboard boxes," Vane replied with a callous shrug. "And after that, Dominic, we remind this lovely bride where she came from. A uniform from Rosie’s Diner is very flammable, as you already know."
The threat hung in the freezing air like poison gas.
Vane turned on his heel, preparing to walk back toward his idling Lincoln, satisfied that he had established his dominance over the proud Salvatore family.
"Julian," Dominic called out softly.
The tone was so conversational, so entirely devoid of tension, that Vane stopped on the gravel and turned back around with an arrogant smirk.
"Yeah, Dominic? You want to negotiate the drop point?"
Dominic didn't answer with words.
He simply raised his left hand and lowered his index finger toward the ground.
From the second-floor stone balcony directly above our heads, a single, muffled thwack cracked through the cold morning air.
It was not the loud roar of an unsuppressed rifle, but the dull, mechanical cough of a specialized subsonic round.
Julian Vane’s right knee vanished in a spray of blood and shattered bone.
The enforcer collapsed onto the gravel with an ear-splitting shriek of agony, clutching his mangled leg as dark crimson soaked through his expensive camel-hair trousers.
His two bodyguards instantly reached for their weapons, but before their hands could even touch leather, four heavy rounds punched through the windshields of their idling Lincolns, blowing out the engines in a cloud of scalding radiator steam.
Twelve armed operators materialized from the perimeter tree line, their assault weapons locked directly onto the two stunned guards, whose hands shot into the air in frantic surrender.
Vane lay writhing on the wet stones, weeping and gasping for air as Dominic descended the terrace steps with slow, measured strides.
Dominic stopped beside the screaming enforcer, his polished leather shoe resting lightly against the ruined joint of Vane's knee.
The man’s screams choked off into a strangled, whimpering whine.
"You made three fatal errors this morning, Julian," Dominic said, looking down at him with the cold curiosity of a scientist examining an insect. "First, you spoke to my future wife without lowering your eyes."
Dominic increased the pressure of his shoe by a fraction of an inch, eliciting a muffled shriek from Vane's clenched teeth.
"Second, you assumed that twelve million dollars matters to a man who controls the Atlantic freight corridor."
Dominic bent down, picking up the clear plastic bag containing my brother’s silver medal from the gravel.
He wiped a speck of dust from the plastic and turned his piercing hazel eyes down into Vane’s terror-stricken face.
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"And third," Dominic whispered, his voice dark as an open grave, "you assumed we were waiting for midnight."
He straightened back up, turning his head toward Luca.
