Chapter 7 - The Ruin of the Romano Dynasty
Back inside the grand library of the Romano estate, the air had turned into an unbreathable fog of burning paper, cordite, and pulverized drywall.
The antique crystal chandelier that had hung in the center of the ceiling for ninety years lay shattered across the charred Persian rug.
Nico Romano knelt behind the overturned remnants of his grandfather’s solid oak desk, checking the remaining brass cartridges in his customized pistol magazine.
He had seven rounds left.
Around him, four black-clad tactical operators lay motionless on the floor, their assault rifles discarded in pools of spreading blood.
His left forearm burned where a piece of shrapnel had torn through his tailored suit sleeve, leaving a jagged red gash across his family crest tattoo.
Outside in the hallway, the sound of heavy footsteps clicked with slow, arrogant deliberate cadence against the ruined marble.
Captain Daniel Hayes stepped through the shattered doorway, holding an unsheathed tactical shotgun loosely in his right hand.
He was not wearing a helmet or a balaclava.
He wore his polished gold captain’s shield on his leather belt and an expensive charcoal wool overcoat draped casually over his broad shoulders.
Behind him stood three more heavily armed mercenaries, their assault rifles raised, sweeping the corners of the burning room.
"Come out, Nico," Hayes said, his distinctive Southern drawl echoing over the crackle of burning bookshelves.
"You were always a smart boy."
"Michael taught you how to run a port, how to balance the books, how to intimidate the dockworkers."
"But he never taught you how to survive against a legitimate authority."
Nico did not answer from behind the ruined desk.
He slowed his breathing, listening to the subtle squeak of Hayes’s leather shoes against the wet plaster dust on the floor.
Three steps.
Four steps.
"You know why Michael kept you in the dark, don't you?" Hayes continued, his tone dripping with mock sympathy.
"He wanted you to think you were a prince."
"He wanted you to believe that the blood running through your veins was noble Italian royalty."
"He couldn't stand the thought of you looking in the mirror and seeing me."
Nico tightened his grip on his pistol grip, his jaw working as pure, cold hatred flooded his nervous system.
"My father took me because you were going to throw me into an unmarked grave with my mother," Nico said, his voice emerging from behind the barricade, low and lethal.
Hayes paused, a cruel, mocking smirk curling the edge of his thin lips.
"Your mother was a sentimental idiot, Nico."
"She fell in love with a street soldier and thought she could threaten my promotion with an illegitimate birth certificate."
"I offered to take care of her."
"I offered to send her to a private estate in Vermont where she wouldn't embarrass my standing in the department."
"She refused."
"She wanted to run to the state prosecutor with Michael Romano’s help."
Hayes took another step forward, gesturing with his shotgun barrel toward the overturned desk.
"So you see, boy, Michael didn't save you out of love."
"He took you as an insurance policy."
"He kept you alive so that every time I looked at the Romano docks, I would remember that my own flesh and blood was wearing his family name."
"He thought that would keep me from pulling the trigger."
"He was wrong twenty years ago, and you are wrong tonight."
"Michael died with honor," Nico replied, rising instantly from behind the oak barrier like an uncoiling spring.
Nico’s pistol barked twice in rapid succession.
The lead mercenary flanking Hayes took a heavy hollow-point round directly through the throat, collapsing backward with a muffled choke.
The second mercenary opened fire, his automatic rounds shredding the oak desk into flying wood pulp as Nico rolled across the floor toward the marble fireplace.
Hayes fired his tactical shotgun, the heavy blast disintegrating the stone mantle above Nico’s head and showering him in blinding limestone debris.
Nico hit the floor, spun on his hip, and fired his last three rounds.
The remaining mercenary dropped to his knees, clutching his shattered shoulder, while Hayes stumbled backward as a slug grazed his right collarbone, tearing open his expensive overcoat.
Click.
Nico’s slide locked back empty.
Hayes lowered the smoking shotgun, his face contorted in a mask of murderous fury, blood dripping from his collar onto his gold shield.
"You should have stayed in the dark, boy," Hayes hissed, raising the shotgun to point directly between Nico’s eyes.
Nico looked straight into the barrel without blinking.
He did not beg.
He did not show fear.
Instead, a cold, blood-chilling smile spread across Nico’s face.
"You forgot one thing about this house, Captain," Nico whispered.
"What?" Hayes snapped, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"My grandfather didn't just build wine cellars beneath these floors."
With his left hand, Nico slammed down on the decorative bronze lion head integrated into the hearthstone of the fireplace.
The mechanical release clicked deep inside the wall.
A concealed emergency fire damper, weighing over four hundred pounds of solid cast iron, dropped from the ceiling frame like a guillotine.
The iron slab slammed down directly between Nico and Hayes with a deafening crash, cutting the library completely in half.
Hayes’s shotgun blast roared against the impenetrable iron barrier, doing nothing more than gouging the surface.
Behind the iron shield, Nico turned immediately toward the concealed service elevator built into the masonry behind the flue.
He pulled the manual safety lever, stepped inside the narrow steel cage, and triggered the counterweight drop.
The service lift plunged down through the vertical stone shaft into the darkness of the subterranean foundations.
Above him, through the muffled stone walls, Nico heard the distant wail of responding city sirens and the roaring inferno consuming the house he had called home for thirty-five years.
The Romano estate was ash.
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The prince was dead to the world.
And the monster who had fathered him was now standing on the smoking ruins of his past.
