Chapter 8 - THE RUSTED BULLET
BANG.
The sound of the .38 revolver was deafening in the enclosed space of the diner.
Lena didn't shoot Vincent.
She shot the heavy steel lockbox on the table.
The bullet pierced the thin steel casing and struck the hidden compartment at the bottom of the box—the compartment Matteo never knew about. The compartment Elias the priest had rigged before Jimmy brought the box to the alley.
The lockbox detonated in a blinding flash of white light and concussive force.
It was a flashbang.
Vincent screamed, dropping the hollowed-out ledger and clapping his hands over his eyes as the concussive wave threw him backward out of the booth.
His four armed guards stumbled blindly, their retinas burned by the intense magnesium flash, firing wild, chaotic bursts from their submachine guns into the ceiling.
“Sofia, stay down!” Lena screamed, throwing her body over her daughter as plaster rained down from the roof.
Matteo didn't waste a microsecond.
He lunged across the shattered table, moving with terrifying speed. He grabbed the barrel of the nearest guard’s rifle, twisted it violently out of the man’s hands, and slammed the heavy wooden stock into the guard’s temple.
The man dropped like a stone.
Matteo spun, leveling the stolen rifle. Pop. Pop. Two precise, single shots. The second and third guards fell, clutching their knees, screaming in agony.
The fourth guard, his vision clearing, swung his weapon toward Lena and the child.
Matteo threw himself in the line of fire.
The guard fired a short burst.
Matteo grunted as a bullet tore through his left shoulder. He didn't fall. He fired back once, hitting the man square in the chest.
The diner fell violently silent, save for the ringing in their ears and the heavy drum of rain on the roof.
Matteo leaned heavily against the counter, clutching his bleeding shoulder, the rifle hanging from its sling.
Lena scrambled up, pulling Sofia with her. She rushed to Matteo’s side.
“Matteo, you’re hit!” she cried, pressing her hand over the wound. Blood was soaking rapidly through his shirt, dark and hot.
“It passed through,” Matteo gritted out, his face pale but his eyes entirely focused. “I’m okay.”
A low, painful groan came from the floor near booth seven.
Vincent Romano pushed himself up to his hands and knees. His expensive suit was shredded. His face was bleeding from shrapnel cuts. He looked blindly around the room, trying to find his dropped pistol.
Matteo walked over and kicked the gun across the floor.
Vincent looked up. His eyes were red and tearing from the flashbang, but he could see the barrel of the rifle Matteo was pointing at his chest.
“You... you set me up,” Vincent coughed, spitting blood onto the linoleum.
“I didn't,” Matteo said coldly. He looked over at Lena. “She did.”
Vincent turned his head, squinting at Lena.
“How did you know the ledger was hollow?” Vincent rasped. “How did you know about the bullet?”
Lena stood tall, holding her daughter’s hand tightly.
“Because Elias told me,” Lena said, her voice ringing with icy clarity. “Before the phone died on the train. He didn't just tell us you were at the diner, Vincent. He told me why you were here.”
Vincent’s face went completely white.
“He told me about my first husband,” Lena said, the words heavy and deliberate. “He told me that my first husband wasn't killed by a stray bullet in a robbery gone wrong.”
Lena walked slowly toward Vincent, her eyes burning with twenty years of grief and sudden, terrifying realization.
“He was murdered,” Lena whispered. “By you.”
Matteo froze, staring at his brother in shock. “Vincent... what did you do?”
Vincent let out a wet, rattling laugh. He leaned back against the ruined booth, defeated but still venomous.
“She was a waitress, Matteo!” Vincent spat, wiping blood from his chin. “You were the heir to the family! Our father wanted you to take over. But you were obsessed with her. You wanted to leave the life to play house with some pregnant diner girl and her loser husband.”
Vincent pointed a shaking finger at Lena.
“Her husband owed me fifty grand in gambling debts. So I made him a deal. I told him I’d wipe his debt clean if he signed away his parental rights to the kid when it was born, and then vanished. I was going to use the kid to control you.”
“But he refused,” Lena realized, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. “He wouldn't give up our baby.”
“No, he didn't,” Vincent sneered. “He grew a spine. He told me he was going to the cops. So, I took him into the alley behind this very diner. And I put a rusted .38 slug in his chest.”
Matteo’s breathing grew ragged. His grip on the rifle tightened until his knuckles were white.
“And then you stole her baby from the hospital anyway,” Matteo whispered, his voice trembling with a rage so profound it seemed to pull the oxygen from the room.
“I had to!” Vincent yelled, his composure breaking. “You killed our father, Matteo! When you found out the baby died, you blamed the family! You shot the old man in his sleep to take over!”
“I didn't kill him,” Matteo roared, stepping forward. “He died of a heart attack!”
“He was poisoned!” Vincent screamed back. “The coroner found the trace elements! You killed our father for a woman who didn't even know you!”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Matteo stood perfectly still. He looked down at the floor. Then, slowly, he looked up at Lena.
“Matteo?” Lena whispered. “Is that true? Did you... did you kill your father for me?”
Matteo’s dark eyes were pools of absolute sorrow.
He didn't speak. He just slowly nodded.
“My father ordered the hit on your husband,” Matteo said softly, the confession finally tearing loose after years of silence. “Vincent pulled the trigger, but my father gave the order. When I found out... when I saw you crying at his funeral... I couldn't let him live. I poisoned his wine.”
Matteo looked at his brother.
“I didn't do it to take over the family, Vincent. I did it to burn the family to the ground. That’s why I burned the ledger. That’s why I left.”
Vincent stared at him, his face twisting into a mask of pure hatred.
“You betrayed your own blood,” Vincent hissed.
He suddenly lunged forward, reaching into his boot. He pulled a small, silver derringer pistol and aimed it directly at Sofia.
“If I can’t have the family,” Vincent screamed, “you don't get yours!”
“No!” Matteo roared.
He threw himself between Vincent and the child.
BANG.
The small gun fired.
Matteo jolted, crying out in pain as the bullet caught him in the side. He collapsed heavily onto the floor, the rifle clattering away.
“Matteo!” Lena screamed, dropping to her knees beside him.
Vincent stood up, clutching his ribs, smiling a bloody, victorious smile. He aimed the derringer down at Matteo’s head.
“Say goodbye, little brother.”
“Drop it, Vincent.”
The voice came from the front doors.
Everyone froze.
Standing in the shattered doorway of the diner, dripping wet from the rain, was a small, ten-year-old boy wearing an oversized red wool coat.
May you like
Leo.
And in his small, trembling hands, he was pointing Matteo’s heavy Glock 19 directly at Vincent’s chest.
