Chapter 6
Marcus lay groaning amidst the shattered crystal, spitting dark crimson onto the white linen, his dislocated jaw hanging at an unnatural angle.
Victoria let out a horrified shriek from the sofa, curling into a ball, terrified that the next strike would land on her.
Rocco stood over his cousin, breathing evenly, his dark three-piece suit unruffled, his knuckles marked only by a faint smear of his cousin's blood. He reached into his breast pocket, drew a clean linen handkerchief, and methodically wiped his skin before tossing the cloth onto Marcus’s chest.
“Frank,” Rocco called out.
“Yes, Don Rocco?”
“Search Marcus’s jacket,” Rocco commanded. “Find the encrypted satellite phone he keeps for outside contracts.”
Frank knelt beside the bleeding capo, digging his hand into the inner lining of Marcus’s charcoal blazer. Within seconds, Frank pulled out a slim, military-grade black transceiver with an encrypted biometric interface.
Frank handed the device to Rocco.
Rocco tapped the screen. The display lit up with brilliant white text: INCOMING DATA LINK - ROUTE 9 CHECKPOINT - CONVOY ALPHA.
Rocco’s eyes narrowed into twin slits of gray slate. “He didn't just plan a poisoning.”
He grabbed Marcus by his hair, hauling the older man’s head up from the glass shards. “Who is Convoy Alpha, Marcus? Speak before I have Frank bring the pliers.”
Marcus choked through his bloody teeth, his eyes wild with frantic terror. “The... the Moretti family... from Philadelphia. They have... twenty men... parked three miles out on the parkway. They were waiting... for Victoria’s confirmation call.”
“To do what?” Rocco asked, his voice deathly soft.
“To breach the estate,” Victoria blurted out from the sofa, sobbing uncontrollably, desperate to trade information for her life. “Marcus told them the front gates would be opened at midnight! The plan was to execute your security team while you were incapacitated, take Noah to an offshore holding facility, and declare Marcus acting Don under emergency council bylaws!”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Capo Sal drew his customized semi-automatic with a sharp, metallic slide. “Boss, let me take twenty soldiers to the parkway right now. We can box them in at the toll plaza.”
“No,” Rocco replied calmly, releasing Marcus’s hair.
He stood up, adjusting his signet ring, looking out through the tall French windows toward the dark private driveway winding through the estate’s pine woods.
“A highway shootout leaves witnesses and state troopers, Sal,” Rocco murmured, his slow pauses carrying the absolute weight of a master tactician. “Let them come to the gate. They think they are arriving to collect an empire. Let them discover what an abattoir looks like.”
He turned to his lead security chief.
“Kill the perimeter searchlights,” Rocco commanded. “Open the front iron gates by three inches. Make the compound look dark, quiet, and celebrating. Arm the upper balconies with the heavy rifles.”
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He looked down at Victoria, his voice slicing through her sobs like a diamond blade.
“And you, Victoria,” Rocco whispered. “You are going to make that confirmation call.”
