Chapter 7 - The Pit of Judas
The darkness inside the grain silo yard was suffocating, punctuated only by two high-intensity halogen work lights mounted on tripods.
The white beams cut through the torrential rain, illuminating the center of the muddy expanse like a brutal, primitive arena.
In the center of the glare, Michael Jenkins was on his knees.
His jacket had been torn away, leaving him in a soaked, blood-stained T-shirt that clung to his shivering frame.
His left eye was swollen completely shut, purple and weeping fluid from a jagged split across his eyebrow.
Behind him, Salvatore Bianchi stood with his hands casually pocketed inside a long trench coat, his heavy chrome revolver holstered at his hip.
Across the clearing, leaning against the polished hood of a black Maybach, stood Uncle Marco.
Marco held a silver pocket watch in his manicured hand, checking the face with complete indifference.
"Three minutes past the deadline, Salvatore," Marco remarked, his smooth voice easily carrying over the patter of the rain.
"It seems my dear nephew values his pride more than his little pet's brother."
Salvatore let out a dry, rasping laugh.
"Daniel was always soft when it came to women and strays, Boss.
He probably choked on his own grief in that hospital room."
Salvatore reached down, grabbing Michael by his wet hair, yanking his head backward until the boy cried out in agony.
"Hey, kid," Salvatore sneered, pressing the muzzle of a snub-nosed backup piece beneath Michael’s chin.
"Any last words for your sister?
She's probably going to end up working in one of our South Side parlors once we clean up the loose ends."
"Go to hell," Michael spat through a mouth full of blood and broken teeth.
"She’s smarter than all of you.
She’ll run.
You’ll never touch her."
"Touching her won't be necessary," Marco said smoothly, stepping away from the luxury sedan.
"Once Daniel is eliminated, the board will confirm my appointment as chairman.
A single phone call to the Cook County coroner will classify Camille’s death and Daniel's sudden demise as a tragic internal feud.
And your little sister will simply disappear into an anonymous statistics report."
Marco gestured lazily with his hand.
"End him, Salvatore.
We don't have all night."
Salvatore grinned, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Michael squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving with silent, terrified sobs as he prepared for the bullet to tear through his throat.
Crack.
A single, sharp, unsuppressed gunshot tore through the industrial yard.
It didn't come from Salvatore's gun.
Salvatore’s eyes widened in sudden, incomprehensible shock as a high-velocity rifle round punched straight through his right shoulder blade.
The impact spun the veteran enforcer around like a ragdoll, spraying dark arterial blood across the wet gravel.
His handgun flew from his shattered grip, landing in a muddy puddle five feet away.
"Sniper!" Marco roared, diving instantly behind the reinforced door of the Maybach.
"Catwalks, return fire!
Return fire now!"
From the elevated steel gantries forty feet above, the six masked gunmen raised their assault rifles, searching the darkness for the muzzle flash.
They never found it.
Before a single trigger could be pulled, three synchronized, muffled pops echoed from the shadows of the rusted grain elevators.
Three of the guards on the high catwalks stiffened simultaneously, their bodies pitching forward over the guardrails.
They plummeted into the darkness, crashing onto the concrete loading pads below with sickening, bone-snapping crunches.
The remaining three shooters scrambled for cover, but a smoke grenade exploded in the center of the gantry, filling the elevated platform with dense, choking gray fog.
Through the white mist of the rain stepped Daniel Russo.
He did not run.
He did not seek cover behind the rusted machinery.
He walked into the glare of the halogen lights with the cold, unstoppable momentum of a ghost returning to reclaim his grave.
In his right hand, he held a custom competition-grade 1911 pistol, pointed casually toward the ground.
His eyes were fixed entirely on his uncle.
"You're getting sloppy in your old age, Marco," Daniel’s voice cut through the rain like an iron blade.
"You hire bottom-feeders who don't even check the perimeter lines of their own kill zone."
Marco slowly peered around the armored frame of his car, his composure shattering into frantic, wild-eyed rage.
"Daniel!" Marco snarled, pulling a small semi-automatic pistol from his breast pocket.
"Where is the child?!
Where is my grand-nephew?!"
"He’s in a place you will never touch," Daniel answered, stepping over a puddle of rainwater and blood, closing the distance between them with every stride.
Salvatore, writhing in the mud, clutching his shattered shoulder with his left hand, tried desperately to crawl toward his dropped weapon.
Daniel didn't even look down.
As he passed the wounded enforcer, Daniel brought his heavy boot down onto Salvatore’s shattered collarbone with brutal, sickening force.
The sound of fracturing bone was drowned out by Salvatore’s bloodcurdling scream.
"That was for threatening my wife," Daniel whispered coldly.
He reached down, grabbed Salvatore by the collar of his expensive coat, and hauled the bleeding monster upright with one arm, using him as a human shield between himself and Marco’s car.
"Drop the weapon, Marco," Daniel ordered, leveling his pistol over Salvatore’s trembling shoulder straight at his uncle’s forehead.
"Your shooters on the gantry are dead.
Vance has two sniper teams zeroed in on your gas tank.
If you pull that trigger, you will burn alive in that Maybach before your bullet clears the barrel."
Marco stood frozen, the small handgun trembling in his manicured hand.
The rain poured over his slicked-back silver hair, plastering it against his pale, aging forehead.
The aristocratic illusion was completely stripped away, leaving only a cornered, aging rat.
"You think you’ve won, Daniel?" Marco rasped, his voice trembling with venomous spite.
"You think killing me brings Camille back?
You think it makes you fit to lead this syndicate?"
"I don't give a damn about the syndicate," Daniel replied, his voice dead and hollow.
"I care about the man who gave the order to fire armor-piercing rounds into my pregnant wife's chest."
Marco’s lips curled into a hideous, desperate sneer.
"She was weak, Daniel!
She was making you weak!
You were talking about divesting from the docks, moving capital into legitimate medical foundations, walking away from the empire your father died to build!
I couldn't let you throw three decades of work into the gutter for a woman and an unborn brat!"
Behind them, Michael Jenkins raised his bruised head from the mud, coughing violently.
"He's lying, Daniel!" Michael shouted through his bloody lips, his voice raw with desperation.
"Check the drive!
The transit drive wasn't just camera footage!
Sergeant Miller gave me the encrypted wiretap logs from Marco’s office!
He didn't kill Camille to save the syndicate!"
Daniel’s eyes narrowed, shifting slightly toward the battered boy on the ground.
"What did you say?"
"Marco was bankrupt!" Michael yelled, dragging himself across the gravel toward Daniel.
"He lost two hundred million dollars in offshore derivative speculation in Zurich!
The Russo family was solvent, but Marco’s personal accounts were completely drained!
He took a contract out on Camille and you so he could collect the fifty-million-dollar maritime insurance policy and seize the private trusts left in Leo's name!
He murdered your wife for an insurance payout!"
The silence that followed Michael's scream was heavier than the thunder rolling across the Chicago sky.
Daniel slowly lowered his weapon from Marco's forehead, staring at his uncle as if seeing a complete stranger for the very first time.
"An insurance payout?" Daniel whispered.
The softness of his voice was infinitely more terrifying than any scream of fury.
Marco didn't deny it.
His arrogant sneer collapsed into a pathetic, trembling grimace of pure, naked terror.
"Daniel... listen to me... we can fix the books... we can—"
Daniel didn't let him finish.
He released his grip on Salvatore, letting the screaming enforcer drop face-first into the mud.
Daniel raised his pistol.
He didn't fire at Marco's head.
He fired a single, deafening shot directly into the front tire of the Maybach, then a second shot into the radiator block.
Steam and hot glycol hissed violently into the cold night air.
"Death is too clean for you, Uncle," Daniel said, his voice dripping with venomous disgust.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out the encrypted military transponder, and pressed the primary broadcast button.
"Agent Marcus Miller," Daniel spoke clearly into the microphone.
"This is Daniel Russo.
The perimeter is secured.
May you like
You have the federal warrants.
Come take your garbage."
