Chapter 7 - The War in the Snow
The Caruso estate in Haverford looked like a snow-covered palace glowing under a sea of artificial floodlights.
High-end luxury sedans and dark SUVs packed the circular driveway. Inside the grand dining hall, under massive crystal chandeliers, forty of Philadelphia’s most powerful organized crime figures sat around a long oak table, sipping vintage wine and eating prime rib.
At the head of the table sat Julian Caruso.
His right arm was wrapped in heavy medical bandages, suspended in a sling from Argos’s attack, but his face was lit with arrogant triumph.
“My uncle was a great man,” Julian declared, standing up and raising a glass of champagne to the assembled capos. “But his heart was weak. He died peacefully in his sleep last night at an undisclosed facility. As his sole heir, I am stepping forward to assume leadership of Caruso Holdings.”
Several capos nodded quietly, though whispering doubts echoed around the room.
Outside, in the pitch-black woods near the old stables, two hundred yards from the mansion, Maeve stood beside Geno and Argos, bundled in heavy dark coats.
Marco was crouched inside the concrete transformer pit, holding a pair of industrial hydraulic wire cutters.
“Ready on your mark, Boss,” Marco spoke into his earpiece.
Inside the dark rear gardens of the estate, Dante stood near the patio doors, wearing a black tactical coat, a heavy suppressed pistol in his hand.
“Cut it,” Dante commanded softly into his mic.
CLIPP-CRUNCH!
Inside the mansion, every light instantly extinguished.
The floodlights outside died. The chandeliers went black. The music stopped. The entire forty-acre estate was plunged into total, absolute darkness.
Screams of confusion and panic erupted inside the grand dining hall.
“What happened to the lights?!” Julian shouted, his voice cracking with sudden anxiety. “Security! Get the backup generators online!”
“Generators take two minutes!” a guard shouted from the hallway.
GLASS SHATTERED.
The heavy French doors at the rear of the dining hall blew inward as Dante kicked them open.
In the pitch-black room, Julian’s hired mercenaries pulled out flashlights, their beams sweeping wildly across the darkness.
“WHO’S THERE?!” a mercenary screamed, raising his rifle.
From the shadows, a sound emerged that made the blood of every man in the room turn to ice.
A low, rumbling, throat-tearing growl.
Argos moved through the darkness like an invisible phantom.
Guided by his acute hearing and sense of smell, the blind Cane Corso didn't need light. The dark was his home.
Argos lunged into the flashlights' beams, taking down the lead mercenary with brutal precision, ripping the rifle from his hands before turning onto the second guard.
Panicked gunfire erupted in the dark, but the shooters couldn't target what they couldn't see. Argos darted beneath tables, flushed guards out of the corners, and created utter bedlam.
Then, a voice rang out through the darkness—a voice that sounded like a spectre returned from the grave.
“You’re sitting in my chair, Julian.”
Dante Caruso stepped into the beam of a dropped flashlight.
The capos gasped in horror, knocking over their chairs as they scrambled backward against the walls.
“D-Dante?!” a senior capo stammered, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re... you’re alive?!”
Julian backed away toward the fireplace, his face pale as a sheet, pulling a small derringer pistol from his coat with his left hand.
“He’s an impostor!” Julian screamed hysterically. “Kill him! KILL HIM!”
None of the capos moved. They stood frozen, staring at their true Don, who stood untouched, immaculate, and utterly terrifying in the center of the room.
Julian, realizing he was completely alone, panicked. He aimed his gun not at Dante, but toward the open patio doors where Maeve was standing, monitoring Dante’s vitals from the shadows.
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“It was you!” Julian shrieked at Maeve. “You ruined my life!”
Julian pulled the trigger.
