Chapter 4 - Blood On The Floorboards
The metallic latch of the front door echoed through the drafty house like a pistol hammer being cocked.
Vincent did not shout.
He did not hesitate.
His body reacted with the savage, trained instincts that had kept him alive through a decade of syndicate street wars.
He lunged across the bedroom, clearing the doorway in a single explosive stride.
“Stay on the floor!” Vincent roared back over his shoulder toward Claire and the child.
He reached beneath his tailored jacket, his right hand wrapping around the checkered grip of his custom Sig Sauer P226.
He cleared the leather holster with a crisp, lethal rasp of steel against Kydex.
Vincent rounded the corner into the narrow hallway just as the silhouette of Luca DeLuca vanished through the front porch.
Outside, the heavy rain had turned into a torrential downpour, hammering against the wooden shingles of South Philadelphia.
Vincent burst through the front door onto the slick, peeling porch.
Fifty feet away, Luca was sprinting toward the idling armored Suburban, his right hand already fishing a set of keys from his pocket while his left pulled a suppressed automatic pistol from his trench coat.
“Luca!” Vincent’s voice ripped through the sound of the rain like thunder.
Luca did not turn to face his don.
Instead, the veteran enforcer spun around the rear bumper of the vehicle and fired two rapid, suppressed rounds back toward the porch.
Thwip. Thwip.
The heavy 9mm slugs splintered the wooden doorframe inches from Vincent’s ear, showering his face with sharp splinters of painted pine.
Vincent did not flinch.
He leaned out from behind the porch brickwork, brought his weapon up in a two-handed combat grip, and broke the trigger three times in rhythmic, measured succession.
The first round shattered the rear passenger window of the SUV, sending tempered safety glass cascading across the asphalt.
The second round struck the steel rim of the rear tire, sparking violently in the gray light.
The third round tore through the heavy wool of Luca’s coat, clipping the older man’s left shoulder.
Luca let out a muffled grunt of pain, his body stumbling against the vehicle’s rear fender.
He dropped the spare keys into the gutter, but his tactical experience took over instantly.
Knowing he could not reach the driver’s seat under Vincent’s direct line of fire, Luca abandoned the armored car.
He vaulted over the low chain-link fence of the neighboring auto yard, disappearing behind a maze of rusted engine blocks, stacked tires, and corrugated metal sheets.
Vincent bounded down the porch steps, his leather dress shoes skidding on the wet sidewalk.
He reached the fence within four seconds, his weapon raised, his eyes scanning the narrow alleys between the rusted car carcasses.
A trail of dark red blood was clearly visible, splattered across the silver links of the fence and washing away into the greasy puddles of the junkyard.
Luca was wounded, but he was moving fast, cutting through the residential block toward the industrial rail corridor two streets over.
Vincent raised his pistol, aiming down the narrow gap between two delivery vans.
He had a clear shot at the fleeing man’s back.
He could drop the traitor who had served his family for thirty years right here on the South Philly gravel.
Then, from inside the narrow brick duplex behind him, a terrifying sound tore through the rain.
It was Claire’s voice—a strangled, desperate scream of sheer maternal agony, followed instantly by the wet, choking sound of a toddler crying in absolute panic.
Vincent froze.
His finger remained taut against the curved steel of the trigger, his crosshairs locked on the distant silhouette of Luca slipping through a hole in the rail yard fence.
If he chased Luca, he would uncover the entire conspiracy within twenty minutes.
He would find out who had ordered Matteo’s fake death, who had sold out Daniel Bennett, and why his father’s most trusted soldier had just tried to put a bullet in his skull.
But if he chased Luca, Claire Bennett would die on that bedroom floor, and a three-year-old girl would be left alone in a house marked for execution.
Vincent Romano let out a guttural curse, lowered his weapon, and clicked the safety back into place.
He shoved the pistol back into his holster and sprinted back up the sodden wooden steps of the house.
He kicked the front door shut behind him, throwing the deadbolt and sliding the brass security chain into its slot.
He drew his secondary phone from his breast pocket—an encrypted satellite unit used only for emergency family mobilizations.
He punched a single speed-dial button as he ran down the hall toward the bedroom.
The phone connected on the first ring.
“Marco,” Vincent spoke into the microphone, his voice dead, flat, and vibrating with absolute lethal intent.
“Boss?” replied Marco Vane, the ruthless captain of his personal estate security detail.
“Luca DeLuca is a dead man walking,” Vincent said, stepping back into the dim bedroom.
On the other end of the line, there was an audible pause of absolute shock.
“Luca...?” Marco whispered.
“You heard me,” Vincent snapped.
“He just fired on me in South Philadelphia.”
“He is wounded in the left shoulder, moving on foot toward the freight rail lines behind Washington Avenue.”
“Lock down the estate immediately.”
“Seize every file, every laptop, and every bank ledger in Luca’s private quarters.”
“Detain his driver, his nephew, and anyone who has spoken to him in the last forty-eight hours.”
“If anyone resists, put a bullet in their leg and wait for me.”
“Understood, boss,” Marco answered without a second of hesitation.
“Where are you?”
“I am bringing two VIPs to the downtown safe house on Pine Street.”
“I want Dr. Mercer waiting on the third floor with a full oxygen manifold, high-dose antibiotics, and a pediatric kit.”
“If Mercer isn’t standing on that curb when my tires touch the asphalt, shoot him.”
Vincent cut the call and shoved the phone back into his coat.
On the floor, Claire had completely collapsed off the bed.
Her head was resting against the baseboard, her eyes rolled back into her head, her body convulsing in weak, terrifying spasms as her lungs completely closed up.
Lily was sitting beside her, crying hysterically, pulling frantically on her mother’s limp hand with her yellow rubber gloves.
“Mommy, wake up!” the child wailed, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks.
“Mr. Vincent made the loud bangs! The bad man is gone!”
Vincent dropped to his knees beside them, tossing his wet overcoat onto the floor.
He scooped Claire into his arms, pulling her limp head against his chest.
Her lips were a deep, terrifying purple; her pulse was a thready, fluttering rhythm beneath her clammy skin.
“I’ve got you,” Vincent whispered against her ear, his voice rough and cracked.
“Look at me, Claire. Look at me!”
Her eyes opened a fraction of an inch, glassy, unseeing, and filled with the cold shadow of impending respiratory arrest.
Vincent reached into his inner pocket, pulled out a small tactical knife, and with a swift flick of his wrist, sliced the straps of her suffocating work vest.
He lifted her into a tight carry against his chest, turned around, and bent down to scoop Lily up under his other arm.
The little girl clung to his neck like a terrified monkey, her small face buried in the collar of his suit jacket.
“We are moving right now,” Vincent said, his long legs eating up the hallway floorboards.
He kicked open the rear kitchen door that led to the narrow gravel alleyway behind the rowhouses.
He couldn't use the front street; Luca might have had a second team watching the Suburban.
Instead, Vincent moved through the sodden alley, stepping over broken glass, discarded pallets, and puddles of black engine grease.
He carried the dying woman and the weeping child two blocks down through the pouring rain, never once slowing his pace, his teeth gritted so hard they felt ready to shatter.
At the corner of 8th and Christian, he spotted what he was looking for: a commercial laundry delivery van belonging to one of his syndicate’s shell operations, parked outside an Italian bakery.
The driver, an elderly Italian man named Sal who had run errands for Vincent’s family for forty years, was unloading wire baskets of fresh bread into the rain.
Sal looked up, saw his syndicate don soaked to the bone, carrying a dying woman and a toddler with a gun half-exposed beneath his coat, and nearly dropped his basket of ciabatta.
“Don Vincent—!”
“Keys, Sal,” Vincent commanded, his voice cutting through the storm like an executioner’s blade.
Sal didn’t ask a single question.
He pulled the ignition key from his apron and dropped it into Vincent’s outstretched palm.
Vincent shoved open the sliding side door of the delivery van, gently laying Claire down onto a clean stack of heavy cotton hotel linens.
He placed Lily beside her, pressing the child’s head down against the soft fabric.
“Stay with your mother, Lily,” Vincent commanded, his eyes boring into the little girl’s terrified face.
“Hold her hand.”
“Don’t let go.”
Lily nodded frantically, her small, yellow-gloved fingers instantly wrapping around Claire’s limp, pale wrist.
Vincent slammed the sliding door shut, vaulted into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and threw the heavy diesel vehicle into gear.
The van tore away from the curb, its tires screaming against the wet asphalt as Vincent aimed the front grille toward Center City.
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In the rearview mirror, he saw Lily leaning over her mother’s face, whispering something into the dying woman’s ear.
And on the passenger seat beside Vincent sat the cracked silver frame, Matteo Romano’s frozen smile staring back at him through the spiderweb of shattered glass.
