Chapter 9 - The Midnight ReckoningThe gunshot shattered the silence, but the bullet embedded itself harmlessly in the hardwood floorboards as a massive shadow materialized from the hallway behind Lorenzo.
It was the broad-shouldered bouncer from the café—along with four other elite bodyguards who had been waiting in the basement armoury.
Chaos erupted in the dark.
Flashes of muzzle fire illuminated the parlor like strobe lights. The sound of shattering glass, splintering wood, and heavy grunts filled the air. Mina threw herself behind the heavy oak dining table, covering her head as plaster rained down from the ceiling.
A body crashed across the table inches from her face—one of Moretti’s men, unconscious and bleeding.
Within thirty seconds, the gunfire stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
“Drop the weapon, Lorenzo,” a deep, gravelly voice echoed through the smoke.
The emergency backup generator clicked on, bathing the decimated parlor in a harsh, clinical white light.
Lorenzo Moretti was on his knees, his expensive suit ruined by soot and blood, with Carmela’s chief bodyguard pressing the barrel of a Sig Sauer against the base of his skull.
Carmela walked slowly across the ruined rug, standing over the kneeling syndicate boss. She looked down at him not with anger, but with profound, chilling disappointment.
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“Tell your remaining men that Chicago belongs to the past, Lorenzo,” Carmela whispered. “And the past is dead.”
She turned her gaze away from him, walking over to the dining table where Mina was shakily pulling herself up from the floor.
