Chapter 5 - Blood at the Table
Damian struck the monitor and shouted:
“Where is she?”
Elena Russo remained bound to a chair on the screen while Carlo Russo stood behind her.
Around Elena’s neck hung a small brass key.
The number stamped into it was 72.
Damian finally understood why the attacker’s weapon carried the same number.
Carlo smiled.
“My nephew.”
Damian’s uncle had served as Antonio’s financial adviser.
After Antonio died, Carlo had become Damian’s counselor.
He had taught Damian how to negotiate.
How to identify fear.
How to hide grief.
And every Sunday, Carlo had sat at Damian’s table.
“You poisoned her,” Damian said.
Carlo’s smile faded.
“I tried.”
Damian’s hand tightened.
“You killed my father.”
“Eventually.”
Victor cursed.
Carlo continued.
“Antonio became sentimental. Elena became suspicious. You were supposed to inherit a manageable organization.”
“You mean one you controlled.”
“Precisely.”
The truth came quickly now.
Carlo had corrupted members of the Russo Protocol.
He had diverted money.
He had financed threats.
Antonio discovered enough to suspect betrayal but not enough to identify Carlo.
Elena came closer.
So Carlo poisoned her.
When Elena survived and disappeared, he spent years searching.
Hazel had protected Damian while Victor protected Elena.
Garrett had remained inside Damian’s visible security network.
Three guardians.
Three different positions.
None trusted the others completely.
That had been Elena’s design.
Carlo hated it.
“Where are you?” Damian asked.
“Hazel knows.”
Damian looked at her.
Hazel’s face remained blank.
Carlo laughed.
“Of course she does.”
The feed ended.
Damian turned.
“Where?”
Hazel did not answer.
“Hazel.”
“Old Russo shipping terminal.”
Victor stood.
“No.”
Damian looked at him.
Victor shook his head.
“That facility was abandoned fifteen years ago.”
“That’s why he chose it,” Hazel said.
Garrett checked weapons.
“We go with twenty men.”
“No,” Hazel said.
Damian frowned.
“Why?”
“Carlo wants an army.”
Victor understood.
“He’ll have the entrances prepared.”
Hazel nodded.
“Small team.”
Damian looked at her.
“You’re not ordering me.”
“I’m keeping you alive.”
“That arrangement technically ended when I fired you.”
“Then consider this freelance work.”
Despite the circumstances, Damian almost smiled.
They went with four people.
Damian.
Hazel.
Garrett.
Victor.
The terminal stood beside the river.
They entered through a maintenance tunnel Hazel remembered from old building plans.
Halfway inside, Victor stopped.
“Tripwire.”
Hazel crouched.
A thin filament crossed the passage.
“Pressure charge.”
Damian looked at her.
“You did secretarial work for three years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It had excellent health insurance.”
Garrett actually laughed.
The sound felt strange inside the tunnel.
They bypassed the trap.
At the central warehouse, Carlo’s men waited.
Gunfire erupted.
Damian stayed behind cover while Hazel and Garrett moved along opposite sides.
Victor disappeared toward the upper office.
Damian saw a guard approaching Hazel from behind.
He fired.
The guard fell.
Hazel looked at Damian.
He shrugged.
“Freelance.”
They advanced.
Carlo’s men surrendered or fled.
Then Damian heard his mother scream.
He ran.
“Damian!” Hazel shouted.
He ignored her.
The office door was open.
Elena sat inside.
Carlo stood behind her with a pistol.
“Stop.”
Damian stopped.
His mother looked older than the woman on the video.
But it was her.
His mother.
Her eyes filled.
“My boy.”
Fourteen-year-old Damian returned for one terrible second.
Then Carlo pressed the gun against her head.
“Drop it.”
Damian dropped his weapon.
Carlo smiled.
“You were always emotional beneath the suit.”
“Let her go.”
“Why?”
“You want me.”
“No.”
Carlo shook his head.
“I wanted what Antonio gave you.”
“The organization?”
“The name.”
Damian understood.
Carlo had lived beneath his older brother’s shadow.
Everything had grown from resentment.
Hazel appeared silently behind a glass partition.
Damian saw her reflection.
Carlo did not.
Damian kept talking.
“You spent seventeen years trying to prove you were better than him.”
“I was better.”
“And you still needed his son dead to believe it.”
Carlo’s jaw tightened.
Hazel moved.
Damian dropped.
A suppressed shot cracked.
Carlo’s weapon flew from his hand.
Garrett rushed through the door.
Carlo was restrained.
Damian went to Elena.
His hands shook as he untied her.
She touched his face.
“You grew up.”
Damian closed his eyes.
“You missed it.”
“I know.”
That hurt more than anger.
Elena held him.
For the first time in decades, Damian allowed himself to be someone’s son.
Later, police contacts loyal to Damian received enough evidence to ensure Carlo disappeared into federal custody.
The criminal empire Carlo had built beneath Damian’s organization began collapsing.
But one problem remained.
Victor was missing.
They searched the terminal.
No body.
No blood.
Nothing.
Garrett found the brass key Elena had been wearing.
“What does it open?” Damian asked.
Elena looked at it.
“I don’t know.”
Hazel did.
Damian saw it immediately.
“You know.”
Hazel hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The Apex Building.”
They returned before dawn.
Hazel led Damian to the seventy-second floor.
Past his office.
Past the boardroom.
To a section of wall behind an old painting Antonio had owned.
She pressed the brass key into a hidden lock.
A narrow door opened.
Damian stared into darkness.
“How long have you known this was here?”
“Three years.”
“And you never entered?”
“I didn’t have the key.”
Damian switched on his phone light.
A staircase descended inside the building.
Impossible.
The seventy-second floor was the highest occupied level.
Yet the stairs went down between walls not shown on architectural plans.
Damian stepped inside.
Hazel followed.
At the bottom stood a steel door.
A keypad illuminated.
Then, before either of them touched it, the lock clicked.
The door slowly opened from the other side.
Victor Hale stood there.
May you like
And beside him was a man Damian had watched buried twelve years earlier.
Antonio Russo.
