Chapter 7 - The Fall of the Traitor
The police sirens wailed in the distance.
The bridge was a warzone of burning cars and bodies.
Matteo’s helicopter landed right in the middle of the chaos.
He leaped out before the skids even touched the pavement, tossing the rifle aside.
He sprinted to the mangled SUV and ripped the back door open with his bare hands.
"Camryn!" he roared.
She was curled in a ball on the floor, her body completely covering Leo’s.
She looked up, her face covered in dust and a trickle of blood, but her eyes were fiercely alive.
"He's okay," she sobbed, holding out the crying toddler. "Leo is safe."
Matteo dropped to his knees on the glass-covered asphalt.
He wrapped his massive arms around both of them, pulling Camryn and Leo flush against his chest.
He buried his face in Camryn’s hair, breathing in the scent of her, his hands shaking violently.
"I thought I lost you," Matteo choked out. "I thought I lost both of you."
For a mafia boss who controlled New York, Matteo had never felt so utterly powerless as he did watching the smoke rise from the bridge.
"Dante," Matteo yelled, looking up.
Dante limped out of the car, clutching his bleeding side. "I'm good, Boss. We got them all."
"Not all of them," Matteo said, his voice dropping an octave, cold and deadly.
He stood up, helping Camryn out of the wreckage.
"Take my family to the helicopter," Matteo ordered Dante.
My family.
The words made Camryn’s heart skip a beat.
"Where are you going?" she asked, clutching his arm.
Matteo looked at her, his eyes promising violence.
"To cut the cancer out of my syndicate."
An hour later, the doors to Silas’s private warehouse in Brooklyn blew off their hinges.
Matteo walked in alone.
Silas’s guards were already dead, dealt with by Matteo’s strike team.
Silas sat at his desk, shaking, holding a pathetic handgun.
"Matteo, wait," Silas begged, dropping the gun. "It was business! Isabella was getting in the way! She wanted you to go legitimate! You were losing your edge!"
Matteo didn't run.
He walked.
Slowly. Deliberately.
"You killed my wife," Matteo stated calmly. "You took two years of my son's life."
He stopped right in front of the desk.
"And today, you tried to kill the woman I love."
Silas’s eyes widened.
Before he could speak another word, Matteo raised his weapon and fired.
No monologue. No mercy.
The mole was dead.
The vengeance was complete.
May you like
But as Matteo turned and walked out of the warehouse, throwing the gun into the river, he realized the darkness inside him had finally vanished.
He was done.
