Chapter 5 - The Bloodstained Asphalt and the Gathering War
Dominic burst through the ground-floor emergency exit into the howling storm, not feeling the freezing rain that soaked his white dress shirt instantly.
The wind ripped the breath from his lungs as he sprinted across the circular drive of the luxury high-rise.
The entrance was a war zone.
Spent brass shell casings from nine-millimeter rounds were scattered across the frozen slush like discarded coins.
The front plate-glass window of the lobby was spiderwebbed with bullet impacts, each hole ringed with frost.
And there, beside the curb where the Escalade had spun out, lay a pool of dark crimson blood that was already beginning to freeze into slush.
Dominic dropped to his knees directly in the red-stained snow, heedless of the ice soaking through his tailored trousers.
His trembling fingers touched the frozen slush.
Resting in the center of the crimson stain was a single tear-shaped pearl earring—the one he had bought Madeline for their first anniversary in Paris.
Beside it, crushed into the ice by the heavy tread of a combat boot, was a torn scrap of emerald silk.
"No," Dominic whispered, the word tearing from his chest like a physical hemorrhage.
"No, no, no..."
He pressed the scrap of silk to his face, smelling the faint trace of her jasmine perfume mixed with the overwhelming iron stench of fresh blood.
Matteo caught up to him, skidding to a halt on the icy asphalt with his weapon drawn, scanning the empty rooftops.
"Dom, we have to move," Matteo urged, his voice cracking with emotion.
"The shooters might still have spotters on the high line."
"Look at this, Matteo," Dominic said, his voice entirely devoid of life, holding up the bloody pearl.
"Look at what I did."
"Dom, get up!"
Before Dominic could stand, the headlights of three black Lincoln Town Cars cut through the sleet, pulling violently into the circular drive.
The doors opened, and a dozen armed men spilled out to form a defensive perimeter around the entrance.
From the center car stepped Salvatore Vitiello, wrapped in a heavy mink-collared wool overcoat, his silver hair immaculate beneath a wide-brimmed fedora.
He held a gold-headed walking cane in his right hand and hurried toward Dominic with an expression of profound, theatrical anguish.
"Dominic! My God, my boy!" Salvatore shouted over the wind, hobbling as fast as his cane would carry him.
"We heard the distress frequency trip from the lobby security console!"
Salvatore stopped beside Dominic, looking down at the blood on the asphalt and the scrap of silk in his nephew's fist.
"Did Castiglione’s animals do this?" Salvatore gasped, placing a heavy, paternal hand on Dominic’s soaked shoulder.
"Did that Brooklyn bastard come for your wife?"
Dominic did not answer immediately.
He slowly rose to his feet, towering over his uncle, his eyes dead and hollow as the grave.
In the harsh glare of the Lincoln’s headlights, Dominic’s gaze shifted from his uncle’s sorrowful face down to the heavy leather boots Salvatore wore.
The tread pattern on the soles was identical to the boot prints stamped into the bloody slush around the casing.
Dominic’s peripheral vision caught the tactical gear of the two bodyguards flanking Salvatore’s car.
They were carrying suppressed carbines—the exact weapons that had chewed through the lobby pillars minutes earlier.
"Dominic, listen to me," Salvatore urged, squeezing his shoulder with urgent force.
"The convoy is staged at the midtown staging house."
"Castiglione has crossed every line of honor by striking at your home."
"We must take every soldier we have, cross the river right now, and level Pier Fourteen before they can offload the contraband."
"If we hit them at the terminal within the hour, we can avenge Madeline and bury Lorenzo by sunrise."
Dominic looked into the eyes of the man who had raised him.
For fifteen years, he had seen love, mentorship, and protection in those pale gray irises.
Tonight, with Madeline’s blood frozen to his hands and her voice still echoing in his head from the decrypted recording, Dominic saw the truth.
The Pier Fourteen raid was not an offensive strike; it was a slaughterhouse.
Salvatore wanted Dominic to lead the charge so that Castiglione’s defensive perimeter would kill him in the crossfire, leaving Salvatore the undisputed Don of the family.
And Madeline had known it.
Madeline had traded her entire life to buy the truth, and he had thrown her out into the snow to be butchered by his own uncle's shadow squad.
"Dominic?" Salvatore asked, a tiny flicker of unease finally showing behind his manufactured grief.
"Do we give the order to roll the convoy?"
Dominic slowly closed his fingers around the bloody pearl earring, the sharp post digging deep into his palm until his own blood mingled with Madeline’s.
He looked down at his uncle, his face settling into a mask of terrifying, demonic composure.
"No," Dominic said quietly, his voice cutting through the freezing gale with absolute, chilling certainty.
"We are not going to Pier Fourteen."
"What?" Salvatore blinked, taken aback.
"Dominic, your wife is either dead or in Castiglione’s hands!"
"We must burn Brooklyn to the ground!"
"We will settle Brooklyn when I say it is time," Dominic said, stepping forward until his chest was inches from his uncle's coat.
"Right now, Uncle, you and I are going back up to my study."
"You are going to sit in my chair, and you are going to help me read every single message stored on Madeline’s phone."
Salvatore’s eyes flickered with a sudden, naked terror that he could not conceal fast enough.
May you like
Dominic turned his back on his uncle and looked toward the eastern horizon where the Manhattan Bridge vanished into the dark, frozen expanse of Brooklyn.
Madeline was out there in the dark, bleeding, broken, in the house of his mortal enemy.
