Chapter 8 - The Ashes of Montreal
By three o'clock in the morning, the council chamber had been cleared, and the lingering threat within the Bellandi family had been decisively severed.
Yet one final thread remained untied.
Sofia Moretti and the remaining strike team from Montreal were stationed in an abandoned industrial warehouse near the Newark docks, waiting for Frank Morelli’s signal that Marco had been deposed.
Marco stood near the back of his armored SUV outside the Manhattan townhouse, putting on a tactical vest beneath his dark coat. Luca and twelve heavily armed guards were securing three black assault vehicles behind him.
Grace walked out of the townhouse entrance, her wool coat wrapped tightly around her against the freezing snow.
"You're going to Newark," she said, stopping three feet from him.
Marco paused, adjusting the strap of his vest before turning to face her. "I am going to finish this, Grace. Sofia Moretti ordered the explosive placed in your apartment. She sent the photograph to your office. As long as she breathes, you are not safe."
Grace looked at him—at the tactical gear, the dark, uncompromising resolve in his face, the blood that seemed permanently woven into the fabric of his existence.
"I don't want you to kill her for revenge, Marco," Grace said quietly.
Marco stepped closer to her, his gloved hands gently taking hers. "It isn't revenge, Grace. It is fireproofing. I spent five years trying to keep you safe by hiding you behind walls. Now I realize the only way to keep you safe is to eliminate every hand that reaches for you."
Grace looked into his eyes, seeing the terrifying, beautiful purity of his devotion. He was a dangerous, violent man—a king of a dark underworld she would never fully understand—but every ounce of his violence was now deployed solely in her defense.
"Come back to me," Grace whispered, her voice cracking in the cold air.
Marco froze, his dark eyes widening in genuine, stunned surprise. "What?"
"Come back to me when it’s done," she repeated, raising her hand to touch his cold, stubbled jaw. "Don't get yourself killed in some filthy warehouse, Marco Bellandi. Because if you die tonight, I will never forgive you."
A small, stunningly handsome smile touched Marco’s lips—a rare, brilliant flash of warmth that lit up his dark face.
"I will come back to you, Grace," he promised, leaning down to press a hard, fierce kiss against her lips. "Always."
He turned, stepped into the lead SUV, and the heavy convoy roared away into the snowy night, heading toward the New Jersey turnpike.
Two hours later, the assault on the Newark warehouse was executed with clinical, terrifying speed.
Marco’s teams breached the perimeter using flashbangs and heavy breach charges. Sofia Moretti’s guards were disarmed and neutralized within four minutes.
Marco walked into the central office of the warehouse, where Sofia Moretti sat bound to a steel chair, her face bruised, her expensive coat torn. She glared up at him with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"You think you won, Marco?" Sofia spat, blood dripping from her lip. "Your wife is a nobody! A fat, civilian baker’s daughter! She doesn't belong in our world!"
Marco stopped two feet from her. He looked down at her with cold, absolute disgust.
"You are right," Marco said softly. "She doesn't belong in this world. She is far too good for it."
He reached into his jacket, pulled out a legally binding asset transfer document, and tossed it into her lap.
"Sign it," Marco ordered. "You surrender all Moretti shipping leases in New York and New Jersey to Grace’s personal charitable foundation. You take the next flight to Italy under federal escort, and if you ever step foot on North American soil again, my men will hunt you down to the ends of the earth."
Sofia stared at the document, then up at his cold, unblinking eyes, realizing that he was giving her a fate worse than death for a mafia princess: complete financial liquidation and total exile.
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"She broke you, Marco," Sofia whispered, her voice trembling with bitter rage as she took the pen. "The great Marco Bellandi... tamed by a baker's daughter."
"She didn't break me, Sofia," Marco said softly, watching her sign her name. "She saved me."
