Part 3: The Crimson Retaliation
The peace did not last. By the second week of January, the winter cold had solidified into a permanent grey sheet over New Jersey, and the war entered its bloodiest phase. Dominic’s strategy of economic strangulation had pushed the Rossi family into a corner. And a cornered beast is always the most dangerous.
I was sitting in the library, reading a book to pass the endless hours of confinement, when the first explosion shook the foundations of the estate.
The glass windows rattled violently. A second later, the sharp, rapid-fire pop of automatic weaponry echoed from the front gates. The blaring red sirens of the mansion’s security system cut through the air, their mechanical wails signaling a red-level breach.
"Chloe!"
The library door burst open, and Marco ran inside, his face pale and smeared with soot. He held a submachine gun in his arms. "We’re under attack. Carmine Rossi brought a mercenary crew. They bypassed the outer perimeter. We need to get you to the safe room now!"
Before we could move toward the secret panel behind the bookshelves, the skylight above us shattered into a million lethal shards.
Two masked men rappelled down from the ceiling on tactical ropes, firing indiscriminately into the room. Marco reacted instantly, pushing me behind a heavy mahogany desk as he returned fire. The deafening roar of gunshots in the enclosed space was paralyzing. I covered my ears, pressing myself against the wood, smelling the sharp, metallic tang of gunpowder and cordite.
One of the attackers fell, his body crashing onto the Persian rug. But the second mercenary managed to flank Marco, firing a burst that caught Marco in the shoulder. Marco groaned, collapsing against the wall, his weapon sliding out of reach.
The remaining mercenary turned his dark, cold eyes toward me. He stepped over the debris, his boots crunching on the glass, raising his pistol directly at my chest.
"Carmine wants you alive, girl," the man hissed, his voice muffled by his balaclava. "But he didn't say anything about keeping your legs intact."
A shot echoed through the room.
But it didn't come from the mercenary's gun.
The man stiffened, a neat, red hole appearing perfectly between his eyebrows. He fell forward like a felled tree, revealing Dominic standing in the shattered doorway of the library.
Dominic looked like the devil himself. His coat was gone, his white shirt soaked in blood that wasn't his own, and his eyes were completely devoid of human emotion. He held a smoking Desert Eagle in his right hand.
He didn't say a word. He sprinted across the room, ignoring his wounded underboss for a fraction of a second, and pulled me into his arms. He dragged me up against his chest so hard I could feel the violent, erratic thudding of his heart.
"Are you hurt? Did they touch you?" he demanded, his hands frantically checking my face, my arms, my torso for wounds.
"I’m okay, I’m okay," I sobbed, clutching his wet shirt. "Marco is hit!"
Dominic glanced at Marco, who was already applying pressure to his bleeding shoulder, grimacing in pain. "Get to the medical wing, Marco. Take two men with you. The front gates are secure; we wiped out their primary convoy. This was a desperation squad meant to kidnap Chloe."
"They knew the layout, Dominic," Marco muttered, his teeth clenching from the pain. "We have a rat inside the house."
Dominic’s expression turned into something so terrifyingly cold that the air in the room seemed to drop below freezing. "I know exactly who it is."
He picked me up effortlessly, carrying me out of the ruined library and down into the subterranean levels of the mansion. This wasn't just a safe room; it was a reinforced bunker beneath the bedrock, complete with security monitors, food supplies, and communications equipment.
He placed me on a chair and turned on the wall of monitors. The screens showed the aftermath of the battle—burning vehicles at the iron gates, Costello soldiers clearing the grounds, and bodies being moved away.
But on one specific monitor, inside an interrogation room located in the basement of the estate's carriage house, sat a familiar face. It was Thomas Bennett. My father.
My breath caught in my throat. "Father? Why is he there?"
Dominic looked down at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of anger and deep pity. "Your father didn't just accumulate half a million dollars in debt by accident, Chloe. The Rossis set a trap for him, yes, but he fell for it willingly. And even after I brought you here, after I cleared his name and gave him a monthly allowance to stay away from New York, he couldn't stop."
Dominic touched a button on the console, playing an audio recording from an intercepted phone line. My father's voice filled the room, sounding frantic, pathetic, and desperate.
"I'll give you the blueprints to the Costello estate's library layout," my father’s recorded voice whispered to a Rossi lieutenant. "Just give me another hundred thousand. I need to get back into the game. My daughter is safe there anyway, Dominic won't let anything happen to her. Just take him out and clear my remaining marker!"
The world seemed to spin on its axis. The man who had raised me, the man I had sacrificed my freedom for, had sold out my life and the life of the man protecting me, all for the chance to roll the dice one more time.
"No..." I whispered, tears spilling over my eyelashes. "How could he?"
Dominic knelt before me, taking my trembling hands in his. "He gave them the security codes, Chloe. He told them where you would be during a security breach. He traded your life for a gambling chip."
"What are you going to do to him?" I asked, my voice cracking with a devastating grief. I knew the law of the mafia. Traitors did not survive. Even if he was my father, he had nearly caused a massacre.
"In my world, a rat is buried before sunset," Dominic said softly, his voice unwavering. "But he is your father. He gave me the only thing in this world that matters to me. For that reason alone, I will not kill him. But he can never see you again, Chloe. I am exiling him to a remote town in northern Canada. He will be watched twenty-four hours a day. He will live in comfort, but he will live in a prison of his own making, completely cut off from civilization. He will never have access to money, a casino, or a phone again."
I closed my eyes, letting the tears fall. It was a mercy my father did not deserve, a mercy Dominic was only granting out of love for me.
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"Thank you," I choked out, wrapping my arms around Dominic’s neck. "Thank you for saving me. Again."
Dominic held me tight, burying his face in my hair. "This ends now, Chloe. Carmine Rossi tried to take you from my home. Tonight, I am going to Brooklyn. I am going to end the Rossi family once and for all."
