Chapter 4 - The Betrayal at the Docks
The defeat at the estate pushed Don Victor Falcone and Senator Ashford into a corner of desperate panic. With federal investigators in Washington reviewing Adeline’s affidavit, their window of opportunity was rapidly closing.
Two weeks after the failed raid, Enzo was forced to attend an emergency meeting of the Chicago Crime Commission at a neutral hotel downtown to prevent an all-out turf war. He left twenty of his best men at the estate to guard Adeline and Nonna Sofia.
He didn't know that Falcone had spent months buying off the estate’s head electrician.
At 2:00 a.m., the main power grid supplying the Marchetti manor was cut. The heavy electronic gates failed, throwing the estate into total darkness. Backup generators kicked in, but the brief thirty-second delay was all Falcone’s elite strike team needed.
Smoke grenades smashed through the conservatory windows, filling the halls with blinding tear gas.
Adeline was tossed from her bed as the door to her suite was breached. She fought back fiercely, throwing a heavy bronze lamp at the first intruder, but two heavy hands grabbed her from behind, pressing a chemical-soaked rag over her mouth and nose.
When Enzo returned to the estate an hour later, he found three of his guards wounded and the East Wing wrecked.
Luca ran up to him, his arm tied in a bloody sling. “Boss... they took her. Falcone’s men. They left a frequency radio on the desk.”
Enzo grabbed the radio, his knuckles turning chalk-white as he pressed the receiver button.
“Marchetti,” Don Falcone’s raspy, arrogant voice boomed through the speaker. “I have your little maid. She’s currently tied to a chair at Grain Silo 4 down at the Old South Docks.”
“If you touch a hair on her head, Victor,” Enzo said, his voice dropping into a chilling whisper that terrified even his own men, “I will tear your family out of Chicago root and branch.”
“You’ll come alone to the docks in one hour,” Falcone sneered. “You sign over the shipping routes and the North Side territory to me and Senator Ashford, or the girl goes into the river with fifty pounds of concrete tied to her ankles.”
The line went dead.
May you like
Enzo tossed the radio onto the floor, where it shattered into pieces. He turned to his men, his eyes carrying the bloodthirsty fury of a man who had finally found something he was willing to burn the world to protect.
“Rally the entire syndicate,” Enzo ordered Luca, his voice echoing through the dark mansion. “Every soldier, every weapon, every car. Tonight, we end the Falcones.”
