Chapter 7 - THE RUNWAY AMBUSHThe blizzard over O'Hare International Airport was blinding.
At 3:45 AM, inside the private terminal of Signature Aviation, Don Carmine sat in the plush leather interior of his Gulfstream G650 jet. He was sipping seventy-year-old cognac, watching the snow coat the tarmac outside.
Beside him sat his chief legal advisor and six heavily armed elite guards from New York.
"Is Sokolov finished?" Carmine asked without looking up from his glass.
"Sokolov's team breached the east wing twenty minutes ago, Don Carmine," his advisor replied, checking his encrypted phone. "The Moretti estate is in total lockdown. Lorenzo is trapped inside fighting forty Bratva mercenaries. By the time the police clear the bodies, you will be back in Manhattan announcing the temporary guardianship of the Moretti assets."
Carmine smiled, raising his glass to the window. "Poor Lorenzo. So much muscle, so little vision. And that pathetic fat maid he brought to the gala... a tragic end for a tragedy of a family."
"Pilot," Carmine called out toward the cockpit. "Taxation clearance. Let's get in the air."
"Understood, Don Carmine," the pilot replied over the intercom. "Starting engines one and two."
The heavy twin engines of the Gulfstream roared to life, a low jet-turbine whine vibrating through the luxury cabin. The plane began rolling slowly down the snow-covered taxiway toward Runway 22-Left.
Suddenly, the plane jolted violently to a halt.
SCREECH-CRASH!
Carmine’s cognac spilled across his silk tie. "What the hell was that?! Did we hit a snowbank?!"
"Sir!" the pilot screamed through the open cockpit door, his face pale with shock. "A heavy aviation fuel tanker just rammed our nose gear! Our front wheel is crushed!"
"What?!" Carmine roared, standing up from his seat. "Shoot the driver!"
Outside on the frozen tarmac, a massive seventy-thousand-pound jet-fuel tanker truck was wedged securely beneath the nose of the forty-million-dollar Gulfstream.
The cab door of the tanker swung open.
Lydia stepped out into the howling wind, wearing a heavy yellow airport worker’s parka over her black tactical gear, holding a massive industrial flare gun in her gloved right hand.
Behind the tanker, six black armored Moretti SUVs spun onto the tarmac, their high beams blinding the cockpit of the jet, flashing red and blue strobe lights cutting through the white snow.
Fifty Moretti soldiers surrounded the aircraft, heavy rifles trained on the emergency exits.
Inside the cabin, Carmine’s guards panicked, drawing their weapons and taking positions by the windows.
"Don Carmine!" the advisor yelled, looking out the window at the woman standing on the hood of the fuel truck. "It's... it's the maid! She drove a fuel tanker straight into our landing gear!"
"Kill her!" Carmine shrieked, his composure completely shattering. "Shoot her now!"
One of Carmine’s guards popped the emergency roof hatch, raising his sniper rifle to target Lydia.
THWIP.
A single bullet tore through the sniper's hand.
Standing on the roof of the lead Moretti SUV, fully exposed to the blizzard, was Lorenzo. He lowered his suppressed anti-materiel rifle, his heavy trench coat flying in the wind like the wings of a dark angel.
He raised a megaphone to his lips. His voice boomed across the tarmac, overriding the roar of the blizzard and the jet engines.
"Carmine!" Lorenzo commanded. "Step out of the aircraft! Or my fiancée shoots a flare directly into the sixty thousand gallons of jet fuel resting beneath your cabin!"
Inside the plane, Carmine looked out the window.
Lydia raised the industrial flare gun, aiming the heavy orange barrel directly at the leaking fuel valve between the truck and the jet's engine intake. She looked straight into Carmine’s window, her face calm, cold, and entirely unbothered by the threat of an explosion that would vaporize them all.
"She's crazy," Carmine whispered, his hands shaking violently as he backed away from the window. "She's actually crazy! She'll blow herself up!"
"She grew up on the South Side, Carmine!" Lorenzo’s voice thundered through the megaphone. "She doesn't care about your money! She cares about justice! You have ten seconds!"
"Ten!" Lydia shouted, her thumb clicking the flare gun's heavy hammer back into firing position.
"Nine!"
Carmine looked at his guards. They were dropping their weapons, raising their hands, refusing to die in a fiery jet-fuel inferno on a Chicago runway.
"Don't shoot!" Carmine screamed, stumbling toward the main cabin door, throwing his hands over his head. "Don't shoot! I'm coming out!"
The heavy hydraulic door of the Gulfstream lowered into the snow.
Don Carmine, the supreme ruler of the New York Commission, shuffled down the airstairs, his expensive coat ruined by spilled cognac, his face pale as death, his knees knocking together in the freezing wind.
Lorenzo stepped down from his SUV, walking slowly across the snow until he stood in front of the trembling old traitor.
Lydia lowered the flare gun, stepping down from the tanker truck to join Lorenzo’s side.
Carmine looked at Lorenzo, then at Lydia, his eyes wet with tears of pure humiliation. "Lorenzo... please... I was a brother to your father..."
"My father died with honor, Carmine," Lorenzo said coldly. "You are dying like a rat on a runway."
Lorenzo didn't draw a gun. He looked over his shoulder.
Marco rolled Mateo out from the back of an armored medical van. Mateo was wrapped in a heavy fur blanket, his raspy breathing visible in the sub-zero air.
Mateo looked at Carmine—the man who had ordered the ambush that stole his body two years ago.
"Mateo..." Carmine whimpered, dropping to his knees in the slush. "Forgive me... it was just business..."
Mateo looked at Carmine for a long, silent moment. Then, he looked up at Lydia and Lorenzo.
"Take everything he owns," Mateo rasped, his voice steady and cold as the winter ice. "Give his New York territory to Lydia’s family. And put him in the same rehabilitation ward he paid the doctors to lock me in."
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Carmine’s eyes widened in horror. "No! Not the asylum! Kill me! Just shoot me!"
"Death is too easy, Carmine," Lorenzo said, turning his back on the old man. "You are going to live in a bed where you can't move... for the rest of your natural life."
