Chapter 8 - THE FLAMING WRECKAGE
The smell of gasoline and burning rubber filled the overturned cabin of the SUV.
Leah groaned, her ears ringing violently, the world tilting at a sickening angle. She was pinned between the deployed airbag and the crumpled roof of the vehicle. Smoke stung her eyes, making them water as she desperately tried to unbuckle her seatbelt.
Outside, the cemetery had erupted into absolute chaos.
The heavy, unmarked transport truck had backed up after hitting the SUV and was now serving as a mobile fortress. Men in dark tactical gear—not Rinaldi thugs, but a highly trained, unknown mercenary crew—were pouring out of the back, laying down a suppressing fire that forced Dante’s men to take cover behind the headstones.
The trap hadn't been set by Silvio. Silvio was just the bait.
“Leah!”
Dante’s voice cut through the gunfire, frantic and raw.
Leah looked up through the shattered, spider-webbed glass of the passenger window. Dante was tearing at the heavy, warped steel door of the SUV, his hands bloodied, completely ignoring the bullets sparking against the chassis around him.
Marcus was crouched behind the engine block, returning fire with his assault rifle, providing cover.
“Boss, we have to fall back! We’re outgunned!” Marcus yelled.
“I’m not leaving her!” Dante roared.
With a final, desperate heave, Dante ripped the warped door upward on its broken hinges. He reached into the smoky cabin, grabbing Leah by the straps of her Kevlar vest, and hauled her out of the wreckage just as the engine block caught fire.
Leah collapsed against him, coughing violently, her plum dress torn and covered in soot.
Dante didn't hesitate. He scooped her up into his arms, carrying her through the mud and driving rain, sprinting toward the cover of a massive marble mausoleum thirty yards away.
Bullets chewed the grass at their heels, sending chunks of dirt flying into the air.
Dante dove behind the thick marble walls of the mausoleum, shielding Leah’s body with his own as they hit the ground.
“Are you hit?” Dante demanded, his hands quickly running over her arms and torso, checking for blood. His dark eyes were wide with a terror Leah had never seen before. “Leah, talk to me!”
“I’m okay,” she gasped, clutching his lapels, her hands shaking uncontrollably. “I’m just bruised. I’m okay.”
Dante let out a ragged, shuddering breath, pulling her tightly against his chest, burying his face in her hair. For a fraction of a second, the mafia boss vanished, leaving only a man desperate to protect the woman he loved.
“Who are they?” Leah asked over the roar of gunfire, peering around Dante’s shoulder at the tactical team advancing on their position.
“They aren't Rinaldi’s men,” Dante growled, pulling his sidearm and checking the magazine. “They’re professionals. Hired guns. Someone with deep pockets paid them to wipe out both me and Silvio tonight.”
“Owen?” Leah asked, disbelief coloring her voice. “Owen doesn't have that kind of money. He’s a dance instructor!”
Dante’s jaw tightened. He leaned around the marble corner, firing three rapid shots to force the advancing mercenaries back into cover.
“Owen isn't the mastermind, Leah,” Dante yelled over the noise. “He’s the informant. He sold the information to the highest bidder.”
“Who?”
Before Dante could answer, the heavy metal door of the mausoleum behind them groaned.
Leah spun around.
Standing in the shadows of the tomb, holding a suppressed pistol aimed directly at Dante’s back, was a man in a perfectly tailored tuxedo.
It wasn't a mercenary.
It was Julian. Dante’s most trusted capo. The man who had managed the east side territory for ten years.
“Julian,” Dante said, his voice dropping to a lethal, quiet register as he slowly turned to face his own man.
“Sorry, boss,” Julian said, his face completely devoid of emotion. “But the old ways are dead. Silvio was bad for business, and you were too stubborn to modernize. I couldn't let you start a war over a bruised ego and a pretty maid.”
The reversal hit Leah like a physical blow.
Julian hadn't come to back Dante up. He had hired the mercenaries. He had used Silvio’s attack on the safe house to draw Dante out into the open, away from the fortified estate, into an ambush where he could wipe out both rival bosses in one night and claim the entire city for himself.
“Owen tipped you off,” Dante stated, his eyes locked on Julian’s gun.
“He did,” Julian nodded. “Kid called me an hour ago, terrified because his ex-fiancée brought the Don of Chicago to his dance recital. He offered to tell me where you were heading if I guaranteed his safety.” Julian smiled coldly. “I told him I would. Then I shot him.”
Leah gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Owen was dead. He had tried to play a dangerous game, and it had cost him his life.
“It’s over, Dante,” Julian said, stepping closer, raising the pistol to Dante’s head. “Drop the gun. I’ll make it quick.”
Dante didn't drop his gun. He slowly lowered it, angling the barrel toward the ground. He looked at Julian, his expression completely calm, terrifyingly composed.
“You made one mistake, Julian,” Dante said softly.
Julian scoffed. “And what’s that?”
“You forgot who taught you how to shoot.”
Dante didn't raise his gun. He didn't move his hand.
He simply flicked his wrist, snapping the heavy, steel-tipped flashlight he had taken from the SUV directly into Julian’s face.
The heavy metal struck Julian squarely in the bridge of the nose with a sickening crunch.
Julian screamed, staggering backward, his gun firing blindly into the ceiling of the mausoleum.
Dante didn't hesitate. He lunged forward, grabbing Julian’s gun arm, twisting it violently until the weapon clattered to the stone floor. Dante drove his knee brutally into Julian’s ribs, dropping the traitor to his knees, and shoved the barrel of his own 9mm under Julian’s chin.
“Call them off,” Dante roared, his eyes blazing with absolute, unyielding fury. “Call off your men right now, or I blow your head off and deal with them myself.”
Julian, bleeding heavily from his shattered nose, choked on a sob of pain. He reached a trembling hand to the radio clipped to his tactical vest.
“Fall back,” Julian gasped into the mic. “Abort. Abort the hit.”
Outside, the heavy gunfire slowly ceased. The mercenaries, realizing their employer was compromised, began falling back to the transport truck, unwilling to die for a failed coup.
The roar of the truck’s engine faded into the distance as they fled the cemetery.
Dante stood over Julian, his gun unwavering. The silence returned to the graveyard, thick and heavy with the smell of cordite and rain.
Marcus ran up to the mausoleum, his arm bleeding, his rifle raised. He saw Julian on his knees and froze.
“Take him,” Dante ordered Marcus, his voice cold as ice. “Lock him in the basement at the estate. I’ll deal with him tomorrow.”
Marcus nodded grimly, hauling the broken capo to his feet and dragging him away.
Dante slowly lowered his gun. He took a deep, ragged breath, the adrenaline finally crashing. He turned around to look at Leah.
She was sitting on the cold stone floor of the mausoleum, covered in mud and soot, her beautiful plum dress ruined, shaking uncontrollably.
Dante dropped his gun. He fell to his knees in front of her, pulling her into his arms, crushing her against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Dante whispered fiercely into her hair, his strong hands trembling as he held her. “I am so damn sorry I brought you into this.”
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Leah didn't pull away. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder, holding onto him as if he were the only solid thing left in the world.
“You didn't bring me into it, Dante,” Leah sobbed quietly against his chest. “I walked into it. And I’m not leaving.”
