Chapter 6 - The Siege of the Mansion
By 1:45 AM, the Moretti estate on the Palisades was surrounded by a thick, heavy blanket of mountain fog.
The grand iron gates stood locked, guarded by four heavily armed mercenaries wearing tactical gear—men hired from the Caruso family to secure the perimeter.
Inside the grand hall where, just hours earlier, three hundred mourners had gathered among white lilies, Tommy Grimaldi paced frantically in front of Elisa's oil portrait.
His black suit jacket was off, his tie loosened around his neck, and sweat glistened on his forehead despite the cool room.
"Where is he?!" Tommy roared, slamming his glass of Scotch onto the marble side table, shattering the crystal. "How does a man just disappear from his own house with a housemaid and a toddler?!"
Two of his lieutenants, young men loyal only to Tommy’s money, stood near the fireplace looking uneasy.
"Boss, we checked the traffic cameras," one lieutenant said nervously. "Dante's sedan turned toward Brooklyn, but we lost him near the bridge. He killed the tracking device in his car."
"He knows something!" Tommy spat, his eyes wide with wild, paranoid energy. "The way he looked at that little girl... the way he went pale! That maid knew something! I should have killed that damn housemaid eight months ago!"
"Tommy," a smooth, sinister voice spoke from the shadows of the upper staircase.
Marco Caruso, thirty-four years old, heir to the Caruso crime family, walked down the marble steps wearing an expensive velvet blazer. He held a silver pocket knife, casually peeling an apple.
"You're losing your nerve, Grimaldi," Marco said with a cold, dismissive sneer. "Dante is a broken man. He’s been a ghost for eight months. Even if he knows something, what can he do? You control ninety percent of the Moretti soldiers. My family has fifty men stationed around this property. If Dante shows his face here, we bury him beside his wife."
Before Tommy could answer, the heavy glass windows of the grand hall shattered into a million glittering pieces.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
High-powered rifle fire tore through the room, shredding the velvet curtains and tearing into the priceless oil paintings on the walls.
The two lieutenants standing by the fireplace were cut down instantly, their bodies crashing onto the hardwood floor before they could even draw their weapons.
"AMBUSH!" Marco Caruso shrieked, dropping his apple and scrambling behind a heavy oak sofa as glass and plaster rained down around him.
Outside, the heavy iron gates of the estate were ripped completely off their hinges as a massive steel-plated garbage truck smashed through the entrance, followed by three black SUVs.
Dante Moretti stepped out of the lead SUV into the courtyard, holding a heavy tactical shotgun in his hands.
Beside him, Bruno Vance and twenty veteran soldiers opened fire on the perimeter guards, moving with the brutal, practiced efficiency of men who had spent decades fighting urban turf wars.
"DANTE!" Tommy screamed from inside the house, his voice high and shrill with terror. "DANTE, IS THAT YOU?!"
Dante didn't answer with words.
He walked up the grand stone steps of his porch, racked the slide of his shotgun with a loud, terrifying metallic crunch, and kicked the heavy mahogany front doors completely off their frame.
He stepped into his home.
The air in the grand hall was no longer filled with the sweet scent of white lilies.
It was filled with the bitter, sharp tang of gunpowder, burning cordite, and blood.
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Dante stood in the doorway, his tall frame illuminated by the flashing muzzle lights outside, his dark eyes fixed directly on Tommy Grimaldi.
"Welcome home, Tommy," Dante said, his voice echoing through the ruined hall like thunder. "I brought you your final judgment."
