Page 73

Sandro

I moved through a mist of red and systematically dispatched the three soldiers holding my men at gunpoint. Sticks was lying on the ground, but he was slowly regaining consciousness. Raffa’s men should have kept a checkpoint at the entrance of the driveway.

They watched our Expedition approach complacently because I had Gian drive with Arnie beside him.

Arnie got out first to obscure my movements. I exited the SUV, gripping two silenced nine-millimeters with a semi-auto shotgun slung across my chest. I quickly got off three rounds and dispatched those motherfuckers.

I rushed into the house, shooting the guard in the foyer and the one standing right in front of the study. I tried not to read too much into the forbidding omen of the ruined sunflowers. That I wasn’t too late.

What greeted me when I stepped into the room turned the red haze into a bloodbath.

I ejected the magazines from my nine-millimeters and shot two soldiers with the chambered rounds. Then I tossed those guns and went for my Benelli M4 shotgun.

The people in the room were only noticing my entrance. The asshole in front of Bianca was about to strike her with his gun, not realizing he had lost his men. That was the advantage of suppressed gunfire.

But I needed this finale to quench my thirst for blood.

The shotgun boomed, and his head exploded like a watermelon.

I stepped into the room, pointing the barrel at the doctor. I spared him. For now.

I spared Raffa and Griselda. For now. Training in military-type kill houses honed my skill to identify and separate immediate threats from civilians.

I had half a mind to shoot Raffa and end his miserable existence, but my wife was in shock.

Blood and brain matter had splattered over Bianca.

“Did he touch you?” I nodded to the doctor.

“I didn’t. I didn’t,” the doctor cried.

Bianca sprung out from the chair and dove into me with a choked sob. With my arm around her, I aimed my gun at the doctor’s head. “Did. He. Touch. You?”

“No,” she mumbled.

“Get out of here.” I motioned to the doctor with my shotgun. He didn’t waste time scrambling out of the room.

I turned my gun on Raffa. “All your men are dead.”

That was when I noticed Arnie. He stepped forward, “Boss…”

I ignored him, my finger tightening on the trigger. “Tell me why I should let you live.”

“Go ahead,” Raffa sneered. “You were going to shoot me, anyway.”

“I wasn’t going to kill you. So you throw a tantrum? Well, that tantrum has cost you all the men you brought with you.”

“Sandro!” Griselda gasped. “They are our family!”

“And Bianca,” I enunciated, “is my wife. Two of them were here when I gave the warning that no one disrespects her. It’s an insult to me. This goes beyond disrespect.”

“So, what are you waiting for? Shoot me,” Raffa said. “Then you can do whatever you please.”

Bianca touched my side. “Don’t give Raffa further ammunition to mess with our lives.”

“He’ll be in his grave.”

“And he’ll have the last laugh and mock you from his grave.” Goddammit. Why did she have to make sense?