Chapter 7 - THE GHOST OF THE PAST
The world spun violently out of focus.
My father.
He was supposed to be dead. I had watched our estate burn to the ground when I was fourteen. I had seen the bodies covered in white sheets.
But the man standing under the harsh halogen light was undeniably Antonio Rossi. He was older, his hair peppered with gray, a jagged burn scar marking the left side of his jaw. But his eyes—the same piercing green as Mia’s—were sharp and lethal.
“You’re dead,” Carmine stammered, backing away until he hit the wooden crate where Mia sat frozen in terror. “I saw the bodies!”
“You saw the bodies of the decoys you paid to betray me,” Antonio said, his voice cold, devoid of any mercy. He kept his pistol leveled perfectly at Carmine’s chest. “You burned my home, Carmine. You slaughtered my wife. But you didn’t finish the job.”
I couldn’t breathe. My hands shook so violently I thought the gun in my pocket might go off by accident.
“Dad?” I whispered, the word tearing at my throat.
Antonio’s eyes flicked to me for just a fraction of a second. The lethal coldness fractured, replaced by a flash of profound, agonizing love.
“Clara,” he said softly. “You grew up so beautiful. Just like your mother.”
Tears blurred my vision. “Where have you been? For twenty years, where have you been?!”
“Hunting the men who helped Carmine,” Antonio answered, his gaze snapping back to the old man in the white suit. “One by one. Lorenzo Romano was the last piece of the puzzle. I put a bullet in his head an hour ago.”
Isabella, bleeding on the ground, let out a piercing scream of anguish. “My father!”
“Your father was a rat,” Antonio spat. He took a slow step toward Carmine. “And now, Carmine, it’s just you and me.”
Carmine panicked.
With surprising speed for an old man, he reached down, grabbed Mia by her small jacket, and pulled her in front of him, pressing the barrel of a silver revolver against her temple.
“Drop the gun, Antonio!” Carmine screamed, his composure entirely shattered. “Drop it, or I blow her head off!”
Mia whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
“Let her go!” I screamed, stepping forward, drawing the small handgun Vincent had given me.
Vincent instantly flanked me, his own weapon aimed squarely at Carmine’s head.
“It’s over, Carmine,” Vincent said, his voice a deadly, calm rumble. “You have three guns pointed at you. There is no way you walk out of this yard.”
“If I die, the Rossi bloodline dies with me!” Carmine laughed hysterically, pressing the gun harder against Mia’s head.
My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
My father’s gun didn’t waver. But I saw the slight tremor in his hand. He couldn’t risk the shot.
Vincent was a flawless marksman, but the fog was thick, and Carmine was using a five-year-old as a shield.
“Clara,” Vincent murmured, so quietly only I could hear. “When I move, you drop to the ground.”
I didn’t know what he was planning, but I trusted him with my life.
“Put the gun down, Carmine,” I said loudly, trying to draw the old man’s attention. “You want the syndicate? You want me to sign it over? I’ll do it. Just let the girl walk toward me.”
Carmine’s eyes darted toward me. “You think I’m stupid? You’ll shoot me the second she moves!”
“She won’t,” Antonio lied smoothly, catching on to the distraction. “My daughter has never killed a man.”
“But I have,” Vincent said.
Vincent didn’t shoot.
Instead, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, metallic object.
It was Isabella’s phone, the one Vincent had confiscated from her guards on the island.
Vincent pressed a single button and tossed the phone onto the concrete between us and Carmine.
The screen lit up, and a pre-recorded video began playing at maximum volume.
It was Carmine’s voice.
“Lorenzo is weak. Once we have the Rossi girl, I’m going to kill Lorenzo and take his territory. Isabella will be my puppet.”
Isabella, clutching her bleeding shoulder on the ground, stopped sobbing. She stared at the phone.
Carmine’s face went ghost white. “Where did you get that?!”
“I record all my business meetings, Uncle,” Vincent said coldly.
Isabella let out a feral, bloodcurdling scream.
With her uninjured arm, she reached out, grabbed the rifle she had dropped, and blindly fired a shot directly at Carmine’s legs.
The bullet shattered Carmine’s kneecap.
Carmine roared in pain, his leg collapsing beneath him. The revolver slipped away from Mia’s head as he fell heavily to the wet concrete.
“Mia, run!” Vincent yelled.
Mia scrambled away from the fallen old man, running as fast as her little legs could carry her.
I dropped my gun, sprinting forward and catching my niece in my arms, collapsing onto the wet ground and shielding her with my body.
“I got you, baby, I got you,” I sobbed, burying my face in her dark curls.
Two more gunshots rang out in rapid succession.
Deafening. Final.
I squeezed my eyes shut, holding Mia tighter.
Silence descended on the shipyard, broken only by the distant wail of police sirens approaching.
I slowly opened my eyes.
Carmine Moretti lay motionless on the concrete, his white suit stained dark crimson.
Isabella was slumped against a shipping container, unconscious from the pain and blood loss.
Vincent lowered his gun, letting out a long, heavy exhale.
He turned to my father.
Antonio lowered his weapon as well. He looked at Vincent, the Mafia boss who had protected his daughters when he couldn’t.
Antonio walked over to Vincent.
He didn’t offer a handshake.
He placed a hand on Vincent’s shoulder and gave a single, deep nod of absolute respect.
“You kept them safe,” Antonio said, his voice thick with emotion.
“I would die before I let anything happen to them,” Vincent replied, his eyes finding mine.
Antonio walked over and knelt beside me in the mud.
For the first time in twenty years, I felt my father’s arms wrap around me. He pulled me and Mia into an embrace that smelled of gunpowder and rain, but felt entirely like home.
“It’s over, Clara,” my father whispered against my hair. “The war is over.”
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But as the police sirens grew louder, Vincent walked over and looked down at us, his face bathed in the red and blue flashing lights entering the shipyard.
“The war is over,” Vincent said softly. “But tomorrow, the real work begins.”
