Page 39 of Broken Vows (Empire City Syndicate #2)

Vincent

The war room in my penthouse has been transformed into something resembling a military command center.

Maps cover every surface, marked with red pins showing Marco's known associates and safe houses.

Digital screens display surveillance feeds from across the city—my men and Max's working together for the first time in generations, their coordination surprisingly efficient.

"Financial tracking shows three withdrawals from offshore accounts in the past six hours," Adrian reports, fingers flying across his keyboard. "All coded to shell companies we've never seen before."

I lean over his shoulder, studying the data streams. My brother's always been cunning, but desperation makes people careless. "Cross-reference those companies with property records. Marco needs somewhere secure to hole up."

"Already on it, boss," Tony says from across the room. He's coordinating with Maya's team, their usual hostility replaced by professional respect. "We've got eyes on fifteen locations, rotating surveillance every hour."

The scope of this operation would have been impossible without Mastroni resources.

Max's network of informants covers areas my men could never infiltrate, while Maya's connections in the underground provide intelligence on movements we'd never detect.

It's exactly the kind of cooperation that's making Marco desperate enough to escalate.

My secure phone buzzes. Melinda's name on the screen makes my chest tighten—she should be resting, not worrying about this hunt.

"Vincent." Her voice carries that clinical steadiness she uses in the OR. "Any updates?"

"We're closing in. Financial algorithms picked up his movement patterns." I step away from the others, lowering my voice. "How's Maria?"

"Perfect. Sleeping like she owns the world." There's warmth in her tone when she talks about our son, but underneath I hear the tension. "When you find Marco, promise me you'll be careful."

"Always am."

"Bullshit." Her laugh is sharp. "You're planning something stupidly heroic, aren't you?"

Before I can answer, Adrian's voice cuts across the room. "Boss, we got him."

I return to the screens, phone still pressed to my ear. "What do you have?"

"Security cameras picked up his car at the old estate. Your childhood home." Adrian's fingers pause on the keyboard. "He's been there for at least two hours."

The information hits like ice water. The Russo family estate sits on twenty acres in Westchester—a sprawling compound where three generations of my family learned the business. It's been maintained as usual since Dad's death. Marco choosing that location isn't coincidental.

"He's gone home," I tell Melinda quietly.

"Vincent, that place has defensive positions built into every wall. Your grandfather designed it to withstand sieges." Her medical training extends to tactical knowledge—another reminder of what world she was born into. "It's a trap."

"Maybe. Or he's having a breakdown." I study the estate's blueprints, memories flooding back. Hidden passages, reinforced walls, weapons caches in every room. "Either way, this ends tonight."

"Take backup?—"

"No." The word comes out harder than intended. "This is between brothers."

Silence stretches across the line. When Melinda speaks again, her voice is deadly calm. "If you get yourself killed playing lone wolf, I'll resurrect you just to murder you again."

Despite everything, I almost smile. "I love you too."

"Fuck you, Vincent. Come home to your daughter."

The line goes dead. I pocket the phone and turn to address the room. Tony, Maya, Max's lieutenant Santos, Adrian—all watching me with varying degrees of concern.

"I'm going in alone," I announce.

"Like hell," Tony responds immediately. "Boss, that's suicide."

"It's strategy." I move to the weapons cabinet, selecting my preferred Glock and spare magazines. "Marco's obsessed with proving I've betrayed the family. He won't negotiate with anyone else."

Maya crosses her arms, predatory smile sharp as a blade. "You know I could put a bullet through his skull from eight hundred yards, right? Problem solved."

"This isn't about solving a problem. It's about ending a war." I check my weapon's magazine, muscle memory taking over. "Marco's convinced himself he's the righteous brother, that I murdered our father for power. Logic won't reach him, but maybe blood will."

"And if it doesn't?" Max's question carries the weight of command—one boss to another.

I meet his stare directly. "Then I make the choice our father should have made years ago."

The drive to Westchester gives me time to think, to prepare for what's coming.

The estate appears unchanged from my childhood—imposing gates, manicured grounds, the main house rising like a monument to power built on blood.

Security cameras track my approach, but no one stops me. Marco's expecting this.

I park at the front entrance, hands visible as I approach the door. The foyer smells like old wood and furniture polish, exactly as I remember. Family portraits line the walls—generations of Russo men who built this empire, each paying the price in different ways.

"Vincent." Marco's voice echoes from the study—Dad's old domain, the room where I learned my first lessons about power and consequence.

I find him seated behind the mahogany desk, surrounded by photo albums and memorabilia. He's wearing the same suit from our last confrontation, but it's wrinkled now, stained with what might be blood or wine. His blue eyes hold that fever-bright intensity I've learned to fear.

"Welcome home, brother." He gestures to the chair across from him—the same seat where I once sat while Dad explained why mercy was weakness. "I've been expecting you."

"Marco." I remain standing, hands loose at my sides. "It's over. The families are united. Your war failed."

"My war?" He laughs, sharp and bitter. "You think this is about territory? About business?" He picks up a framed photo from childhood—the three of us at Christmas, back when we still believed in family. "This is about loyalty, Vincent. About honoring what our father built."

"Our father was dying. Cancer was going to kill him within months."

"And you helped it along." Marco's voice drops to a whisper. "Had Sal do your dirty work. All so you could play house with the enemy."

Marco lunges before I can react, twenty years of childhood fighting erupting into lethal combat. We crash into the bookshelf, leather-bound volumes scattering as we grapple for position. He's always been faster, but I'm stronger, and desperation makes him sloppy.

I pin him against the wall, forearm pressed to his throat. "It doesn't have to end like this. We're still family."

"Family?" He spits blood onto the Persian rug. "You chose her over us. Chose their blood over ours."

"I chose the future over the past."

"You chose betrayal."

He breaks free with vicious efficiency, elbow driving into my ribs hard enough to crack bone. I stumble backward as he reaches for something behind the desk. When he turns back, there's a gun in his hand—Dad's old .38, the one he kept for sentimental reasons.

"Marco, don't."

"You know what the old man used to say?" He raises the weapon, finger on the trigger. "Family first. Always family first."

"This isn't what he meant."

"Isn't it?" His smile is broken glass and bloodstained teeth. "He's probably watching from hell, proud that one of his sons remembers the rules."

I draw my Glock in the same motion he pulls the trigger. Two gunshots echo through the study where we learned to be killers, where our father taught us that blood was the only truth that mattered.

Marco's bullet goes wide, gouging wood from the wall behind me. Mine finds its target—center mass, just like Dad taught us. Marco staggers backward, surprise flickering across his features before the light fades from his wild blue eyes.

He collapses beside the desk, blood spreading across the same rug where I once knelt to receive my first lesson about power. In death, he looks younger—like the brother who used to help me with homework, who took beatings meant for me when we were children.

I holster my weapon and kneel beside him, closing his eyes with trembling fingers. "I'm sorry," I whisper to the ghost of the boy he used to be.

The estate is silent around me, three generations of family legacy ending in gunpowder and grief. Outside, the sun sets over grounds where we once played war games, never knowing how prophetic they'd prove to be.

My phone buzzes with messages—Tony wanting updates, Melinda demanding confirmation I'm alive. I ignore them all for now, sitting in the gathering darkness beside my brother's body, surrounded by photographs of a family that never learned the difference between loyalty and love.

Family first. The principle that built our empire and destroyed us both.

I finally stand, legs unsteady, and dial Tony's number. "It's finished. Send the cleanup crew."

"Boss? You okay?"

I look at Marco one last time—at the brother I failed to save, at the war that should never have started. "No. But I'm alive."

That's going to have to be enough.