Chapter 8 - The Battle of Fifth Street
Flashing red and blue lights illuminated the rain outside as tactical flashbang grenades exploded through the shattered dining room windows, filling the air with blinding white light and deafening booms.
“DOWN!” Luca roared, grabbing me around the waist and tackling me beneath the heavy mahogany dining table just as a hail of gunfire ripped through the walls.
Surrounded by flying wood splinters, shattering glass, and blinding smoke, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Marco and the Moretti guards immediately drew their weapons, returning fire with lethal, surgical precision, cutting down Valenti’s men before they could organize a counter-attack.
“Avery! Are you hurt?!” Luca yelled over the deafening roar of automatic gunfire, his body completely covering mine under the table.
“I’m fine! I’m fine!” I gasped, clutching the diamond belt around my waist.
Outside the mansion, heavy tactical sirens wailed.
“FEDERAL AGENTS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! THIS BUILDING IS SURROUNDED!” a powerful loudspeaker boomed from the front lawn.
Dominic Valenti, bleeding from a shoulder wound, scrambled across the ruined floorboards toward a hidden door disguised behind a wall bookshelf.
“He’s escaping!” I pointed out wildly.
Luca’s eyes darkened into pitch blackness. “Not this time.”
Luca stood up from beneath the table, drawing his dark steel pistol. “Marco! Hold the doorway! Cover the police entry!”
“Go, boss!” Marco yelled, firing two rounds down the corridor.
Luca grabbed my hand, pulling me swiftly behind him as we charged through the hidden bookshelf door into a dark, narrow stone staircase leading down into the mansion’s underground wine cellar.
The air below was cold, damp, and smelled of dirt and old oak barrels.
At the far end of the long stone cellar, Dominic Valenti was frantically trying to unlock an iron exit door that led to an underground escape tunnel. His hands were covered in blood, trembling so violently he couldn't get the key into the lock.
“Dominic!” Luca’s voice echoed like thunder off the stone arches.
Dominic spun around, his back slamming against the iron door, holding his silver revolver with both hands, pointing it straight at Luca’s chest.
“Stay back, Moretti!” Dominic spat, blood dripping from his chin. “Stay back or I’ll blow your head off!”
Luca didn't stop. He walked slowly, deliberately down the stone aisle, his pistol held low at his side, completely indifferent to the weapon pointed at his heart.
“Twenty years ago, you cut the brakes on Clara Moretti’s car,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. “You made a six-year-old girl an orphan. You hid behind your money and your enforcers for two decades.”
Dominic’s eyes darted frantically between Luca and me, realizing he was completely trapped.
“It was business!” Dominic screamed desperately. “Your father was taking my territory! It was just business!”
“No,” I spoke up, stepping out from behind Luca, my emerald dress flowing around me, the silver locket glowing under the dim cellar bulbs. “It wasn't business, Dominic. It was murder.”
Dominic’s hands shook so violently the gun wobbled in the air. “You... you damned Morettis...”
With a desperate, hysterical shriek, Dominic pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The deafening shot echoed through the stone cellar.
Luca shifted his shoulder instantly, taking the bullet in his upper left arm, refusing to yield an inch. Before Dominic could fire a second time, Luca closed the distance like a striking predator.
He grabbed Dominic’s wrist, twisting it violently until the silver revolver dropped clattering to the stone floor. Luca slammed the old mob boss against the iron door, pressing the cold barrel of his own pistol directly against Dominic’s forehead.
Dominic gasped for air, terror flooding his yellow eyes. “Luca... please... mercy...”
Luca looked at me over his shoulder, his dark eyes filled with a heavy, solemn question.
I walked up beside Luca, looking down at the broken, pathetic old man who had destroyed my childhood.
“Death is too easy for him, Luca,” I whispered softly, reaching out to lay my hand gently over Luca’s gun hand. “Let him spend the rest of his miserable life in a federal prison cell, watching the Moretti family thrive.”
Luca stared into my eyes for three long seconds. The terrifying, vengeful fire in his dark gaze slowly cooled into deep, profound respect.
Slowly, deliberately, Luca lowered his weapon.
A second later, the heavy wooden doors of the cellar were kicked open, and dozens of heavily armed FBI tactical agents flooded into the room, laser sights painting the walls red.
“FEDERAL AGENTS! DON'T MOVE!”
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Luca stepped back, raising his hands calmly, keeping his body positioned firmly between the federal officers and me.
“He’s all yours, officers,” Luca said coldly, pointing at the bleeding, sobbing man collapsed against the iron door. “Dominic Valenti is finally going home.”
