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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Nico

I feel it before anything happens, that electric charge in the air that precedes catastrophe. Some men call it intuition. I call it survival instinct, honed through years of navigating Chicago’s underworld. Tonight, that instinct screams danger.

The security feeds stream across multiple screens in my office, the low electronic hum a familiar counterpoint to the taste of the Macallan on my tongue. I watch my client’s latest shipment arriving at the warehouse. Everything appears normal, the men efficient, the transfer smooth. Yet something feels wrong. I can’t place it, but the sensation prickles at the back of my neck, a phantom warning I’ve learned never to ignore.

“Third checkpoint confirmed delivery,” Marco says, standing by the window overlooking the main floor of Purgatorio. The club is busy below us, unaware of the tension building in this room. “All inventory accounted for.”

I nod, eyes still tracking movement on the screens. “And our lookouts?”

Marco shifts his weight, a subtle tell I recognize. He’s concerned. “Garza and Rivera haven’t checked in for the last hour.”

My fingers still on the keyboard. Garza never misses check-in. Even when the feds were crawling all over his neighborhood last month, he found a way to signal all-clear.

“Both of them? Same location?”

“Different posts. East and south approaches.” Marco’s voice remains professional, but I catch the underlying worry. He’s been with me long enough to read the same warning signs.

I lean back, considering. Two lookouts going dark simultaneously isn’t coincidence. It’s coordination.

“Call them again,” I instruct, already rising from my desk. “Then initiate shutdown. I want the club cleared in twenty minutes. Staff too. Keep only security team Alpha.”

Marco nods once, already dialing. I watch as his expression hardens when the call goes straight to voicemail. He switches to the other number with the same result.

“Something’s coming,” I murmur, more to myself than to Marco. I cross to the hidden panel behind my bookshelf, entering the code that reveals a compact arsenal. My Sig Sauer P226 slides into my hand with its usual weight. I check the magazine, the action smooth and practiced.

“Boss, tonight’s revenue—” Marco begins.

“Leave it. If my instinct is wrong, we lose one night’s profit. If I’m right…” I slide the gun into my shoulder holster, adjusting my jacket to conceal it.

Marco doesn’t argue. In fifteen years at my side, he’s seen my instincts proven right too many times. “What about the journalist?”

I pause. Lea. Currently downstairs interviewing my staff for her article. She’s a planned risk that now threatens to become a liability.

“Find her. Bring her up here. We leave in ten minutes.”

As Marco exits, I turn to the security system controls, initiating lockdown protocols. Bulletproof shutters descend over external windows. Access points reduce to minimum essential entries. The system is designed to transform Purgatorio from nightclub to fortress in under two minutes.

I pull out my phone, scrolling to Alessandro’s contact. My finger hovers over the call button, then withdraws. No need to alarm him yet. If this is Moretti making a move, I want confirmation before I involve my uncle.

Instead, I dial our backup team stationed three blocks over.

“Status check,” I say when the line connects.

“All quiet, boss,” comes the response. “Traffic normal. No unusual activity.”

“Move to position Bravo. Be ready to extract on my signal.”

“Copy that. ETA eight minutes.”

I end the call, my mind already mapping contingencies. If this is Moretti, he’ll have planned thoroughly. The man is many things, volatile, ambitious, brutal, but never sloppy. If he’s coming for me, he’ll have multiple angles covered.

The door opens, and Marco returns with Lea. Her expression shifts from mild annoyance to alert concern as she reads the tension in the room.

“What’s happening?” she asks, dark eyes scanning the security monitors, the visible weapon at my side.

“Possible security situation,” I answer, vague. Despite our arrangement, there are limits to what she needs to know. “We’re leaving. Now.”

To her credit, she doesn’t waste time with unnecessary questions. She gathers her materials, notebook, recorder, phone, and slips them into her bag with efficient movements. I’ve noticed this about her: beneath the journalistic persistence and sharp intelligence, there’s a pragmatic survivor.

“Marco, take point. Standard extraction path C.” I turn to Lea. “Stay between us. Move when we move. Stop when we stop. Understand?”

She nods once, eyes steady on mine. No fear yet, just focused attention and the slight flush of adrenaline across her cheekbones.

I check the monitor one final time. The club has emptied considerably in the past few minutes, my security team ushering patrons toward the exits with minimum fuss. Most will assume it’s a routine closure, perhaps for a private event. By tomorrow, they’ll hear about a gas leak or electrical issue that required evacuation.

If tomorrow comes.

The thought flits through my mind unbidden. I dismiss it. Doubt is a luxury I cannot afford.

“Let’s move,” I say, gesturing toward the private exit behind my office. This route will bypass the main floor, leading to the service area where a vehicle should be waiting.

Marco leads the way, his movements controlled yet alert. Lea follows, her steps measured and quiet. I bring up the rear, scanning constantly, the weight of my weapon a reassuring presence against my ribs.

We descend the narrow stairwell in silence. The music from the club grows fainter, replaced by the dull hum of industrial air handling systems. The service corridor stretches before us, dimly lit and utilitarian with concrete floors, exposed pipes overhead, steel doors at regular intervals.

We’re halfway to the exit when I hear it, the subtle click of a side door being tested. Marco freezes, hand raised to halt our progress. Lea stops, her body tensing as she registers the change in atmosphere.

Three seconds of absolute stillness. Four. Five.

The door at the end of the corridor bursts open.

Everything happens at once.

The gunshot cracks through the confined space, deafening in its intensity. Glass shatters as a bullet strikes an overhead light fixture. Marco reacts with practiced efficiency, shoving Lea behind a concrete support pillar, drawing his weapon in the same fluid motion.

I’m already moving, dropping into a crouch as I draw my Sig. Four men in tactical gear pour through the doorway, professional killers, not street thugs. No masks, no hesitation. They’re here to eliminate, not intimidate.

The first attacker advances, weapon raised. I center my sight picture and squeeze the trigger twice in rapid succession. Center mass. The impact drives him backward, weapon discharging harmlessly into the ceiling as he falls.

Marco engages the second, the exchange of gunfire creating a disorienting barrage of sound in the enclosed space, the sharp scent of cordite stinging my nostrils. The emergency lighting kicks in automatically as more fixtures shatter, bathing everything in pulsing red. Blood appears black in this light, shadows writhing like living things against the concrete walls.

I adjust position, seeking better cover as the third attacker moves laterally, attempting to flank us. My mind operates on two tracks simultaneously: the immediate tactical situation and the broader strategic implications. Why tonight? What intelligence did Moretti receive that prompted this timing?

The questions evaporate as a second team breaches from the opposite direction. We’re caught in a classic pincer movement, escape routes closing rapidly.

“Panic room!” Marco shouts over the gunfire, already maneuvering toward the concealed entrance twenty meters away.

I assess instantly. We’re cut off. The distance is too great, the cover too sparse. We’d be exposed for a critical five seconds. Unacceptable risk.

“Negative!” I call back, gesturing toward a service alcove to our right. “Alternative route!”

Marco nods, understanding. We’ve rehearsed contingencies for years, mapped every potential escape path. He provides covering fire as I grip Lea’s arm, pulling her toward the alcove.

She moves with surprising coordination, staying low as instructed. No screaming, no freezing in panic. Her adaptability continues to impress, even in this chaos.

We’re three meters from cover when it happens. A bullet clips my side, tearing through my jacket and shirt to score a burning path across my ribs. White-hot pain flares, but adrenaline keeps it manageable. I’ve experienced worse. This is superficial, painful but not debilitating.

We reach the alcove, temporary shelter from the immediate gunfire. I check my wound. It’s bleeding steadily but not arterial. Manageable. Lea’s eyes widen at the sight of blood darkening my shirt, but she says nothing, maintaining the composed silence.

Marco provides suppressing fire from his position, buying us precious seconds. I’m calculating our next move when catastrophe strikes.

Marco takes a hit to his right leg. The impact spins him, driving him to one knee. Even from this distance, I can see it’s bad, femoral involvement likely from the volume of blood already darkening his pants.

Despite the injury, he maintains fire discipline, continuing to engage the approaching attackers. But his mobility is compromised. He can’t make it to our position.

Time slows as I watch one of Moretti’s men advance on Marco’s position, weapon raised for a kill shot. It’s one of the fucking twins. Matteo. I try to establish a firing line, but the angle is wrong, the distance too great for a reliable headshot around Lea’s position.

Marco knows. I see it in his eyes as he glances my way, not pleading for help, but offering absolution for what we both know is about to happen. Then he turns back to face his executioner, defiance written in every line of his body.

“Tell Moretti he still shoots like a bitch,” he spits, blood on his teeth, chin raised in one final act of loyalty.

The gunshot reverberates through the corridor like a thunderclap. Marco’s body jerks once, then slumps forward, motionless on the concrete floor.

Something breaks inside me.

The cold, strategic calculation that has defined my survival for decades shatters, replaced by a white-hot rage that consumes rational thought. Marco isn’t just my right hand, he’s the brother I chose, the one person who has stood beside me through every trial, the only man I trust completely.

Was. Was the only man.

I move before conscious decision forms, advancing on Matteo with single-minded purpose. As I move past another attacker, a blade slashes across my shoulder. I register the burning pain distantly, irrelevantly. My world has narrowed to a single objective: Matteo, the man who executed Marco will die by my hand.

Three shots in rapid succession. Center mass, center mass, throat. Matteo crumples, weapon clattering to the ground. The visceral satisfaction is immediate but hollow as Marco remains motionless on the floor, blood pooling beneath him.

I don’t see his brother coming from my blind side until it’s almost too late. A crushing impact between my shoulder blades drives me to my knees. Something cracks, ribs giving way under the force. My weapon skitters across the concrete floor, beyond reach.

Copper floods my mouth. Internal damage, possibly lung involvement. The tactical part of my brain catalogs injuries automatically, even as I try to regain my feet.

Too slow. Vincent looms above me, tactical knife raised for a killing stroke. In that crystalline moment of clarity, I recognize my failure. After decades of perfect strategy, I’m going to die because I let emotion cloud judgment. Marco would be disappointed.

Vincent laughs hysterically. “Look who’s got the knife now, motherfucker!” The blade descends in what feels like slow motion.

Then impossibly, Lea emerges from cover, my fallen weapon gripped in both hands. Her stance is all wrong, clearly unpracticed, but her determination is absolute. The first shot catches Vincent in the shoulder, spinning him away from me. The second finds his throat with devastating accuracy.

The sound he makes as he falls is grotesque, wet, gurgling and final. He collapses in stages, first to his knees, then forward onto the concrete. Arterial blood pulses in diminishing spurts from the ruined neck.

Lea stands frozen, the gun still extended, eyes wide with shock. The weapon trembles in her grip as the reality of what she’s done registers on her face.

I struggle to my feet, pain now screaming through every nerve ending. The adrenaline buffer is fading, allowing full awareness of my injuries to surface. “Lea,” I gasp, but she doesn’t respond, transfixed by the dying man at her feet.

Distant sounds of movement snap me back to tactical awareness. We’re not clear yet. More of Moretti’s men are approaching, drawn by the gunfire.

I grasp Lea’s arm firmly, the contact breaking her paralysis. “We need to move. Now.”

Her eyes finally focus on me, pupils dilated with shock and residual adrenaline. I pry my weapon from her unresisting fingers, checking the magazine. Three rounds remaining. Not ideal, but workable.

Moving hurts. Each breath sends shards of pain through my chest. Definitely broken ribs. Blood soaks my shirt on two sides now, the shoulder wound deeper than I initially assessed. But Marco’s body lies just meters away. Surrender isn’t an option.

“This way,” I direct, leading Lea toward a service passage concealed behind what appears to be a maintenance panel. Few know of these hidden routes, a security feature I insisted on when renovating the building. Now, that paranoia might save our lives.

The narrow passage is designed for maintenance access, barely wide enough for two people. The air here is stale, thick with the smell of dust and machinery oil. I navigate by memory and touch, each step a negotiation with increasing pain. Twice I’m forced to stop, leaning against the wall as vision blurs and darkness threatens at the edges of consciousness.

Lea supports me without being asked, her slim shoulder braced under my arm, taking weight I can no longer fully bear. The shock of her first kill seems contained by the immediate need for survival. That breakdown will come later, if we survive long enough to allow it.

After what feels like an eternity of painful progress, we reach the concealed safe room. I press my palm against a seemingly solid wall section, revealing a biometric scanner hidden within the paneling. A soft click, and a door swings inward to reveal a small space equipped with surveillance monitors, weapons, medical supplies, and basic provisions. The air inside is cool, sterile, smelling faintly of antiseptic.

My legs finally surrender as we cross the threshold. I collapse into a chair, each breath a stabbing reminder of damaged ribs and continuing blood loss.

“Lock the door,” I instruct, voice rough with pain. “The code is 3-9-8-4.”

Lea’s fingers tremble as she automatically enters the sequence. She turns back, her face ashen. Abstract patterns of blood, not her own, stain her clothes.

“Marco’s dead,” she states flatly, as if saying it aloud might make it less real.

I nod once, sharply. The grief is a separate wound, deeper than the physical ones bleeding through my clothing. Marco has been my constant for fifteen years, the one person who knew every aspect of my operation, who could anticipate my needs before I voiced them. His loss is more than personal; it’s a strategic catastrophe.

But grief is a luxury I cannot afford right now. Survival first. Then vengeance.

“Check the monitors,” I direct. “Are they still in the building?”

Lea moves to the surveillance station, fingers leaving smudges of blood on the controls as she cycles through camera feeds. “I see three men searching the main floor,” she reports with surprising steadiness. “Two more at the exits.”

Five hostiles remaining. Against one wounded defender and a civilian who’s never held a weapon until tonight. The tactical situation is untenable.

I assess our options. I’m losing blood from two wounds. My broken ribs compromise mobility and combat effectiveness. The safe room is secure but ultimately a dead end as we can’t remain here indefinitely.

For perhaps the first time in my adult life, I face a scenario without a clear strategic advantage.

“My phone,” I say, the decision forming as I speak. “Call Alessandro.”

Lea retrieves the phone from my jacket pocket, now sticky with dried blood. She navigates to contacts with remarkable composure, considering the circumstances. The call connects as she turns on the speaker.

“Nephew?” Alessandro’s voice, precise and cultured as always.

“It’s Lea Song,” she answers, her voice steady despite everything she’s witnessed tonight. “Nico’s hurt. Marco’s dead. Moretti’s men hit the club.”

A beat of silence follows as Alessandro processes the catastrophic implications of those three short sentences. “How bad?” he finally asks, voice shifting to the cold efficiency I recognize.

Lea looks at me, assessing visible injuries. “Bullet graze on his side, deep cut on his shoulder, maybe broken ribs. He’s losing blood.”

“Can he move?” Alessandro directs the question to her.

I take the phone from her hand, unwilling to be discussed as if absent. “I can move,” I assert, though the claim feels increasingly tenuous as shock and blood loss take their toll.

Alessandro doesn’t waste time questioning my assessment. “I’m sending a team. Five minutes. Get to the east service entrance if you can. If not, stay put and they’ll extract you.”

Five minutes. The timeframe is both reassuringly brief and dauntingly distant. We need to move now, while Moretti’s men are still searching other areas of the building. The entrance is two hundred meters from our current position, a distance that would normally be trivial but now looms as a significant challenge.

I force myself to stand, using the back of the chair for support as the room tilts alarmingly. Pain radiates from my ribs in waves that threaten to buckle my knees.

“I need your help,” I admit to Lea. The admission costs nearly as much as the physical agony. Vulnerability has never come easily.

She steps forward without hesitation, sliding her arm around my waist, positioning herself to take my weight while avoiding the worst of my injuries. Her strength surprises me and not just her physical strength, but the steadiness of purpose after everything she’s witnessed tonight.

We move together toward the exit, each step a negotiation between necessity and physical limitation. I focus on controlling my breathing, minimizing the stabbing pain from my ribs while maintaining consciousness. One step. Another. The door. The corridor beyond.

Our progress is painfully slow. Every few meters, I’m forced to pause, leaning against the wall as dizziness threatens to overwhelm me. Lea remains steadfast, her body pressed against mine in necessary support, her expression grimly determined.

We pass the main corridor where the initial confrontation occurred. Marco’s body lies facedown on the concrete, surrounded by a pool of blood. I force myself to look, to bear witness to the consequence of my miscalculation, to burn this image into memory as fuel for what must follow.

Moretti has always been ambitious, ruthless in pursuit of territory and power. But this act…executing Marco, and attempting to eliminate me in my own club, crosses a threshold from which there is no return. The debt incurred tonight will be paid in full, with compound interest. Moretti has signed his own death warrant; he simply doesn’t know it yet.

We continue our painful progress toward the east service entrance. Twice we freeze at sounds of movement nearby, pressing into shadows until the threat passes. Lea adapts to these necessities without instruction, her body language mirroring mine with surprising intuition.

Finally, the service entrance comes into view, a utilitarian steel door illuminated by a single emergency light. I check my watch. Four minutes and thirty seconds since Alessandro’s call. His team should be approaching now.

As if summoned by the thought, the door opens. Four figures enter in tactical formation. It’s Alessandro’s personal security detail, professionals with military backgrounds and absolute loyalty. Their weapons sweep the corridor efficiently, identifying us without needing verbal confirmation.

The team leader, Danny, former special forces, approaches with contained urgency. “Secure for transport,” he says, gesturing to his men. Two of them move to flank us, providing support while the others maintain perimeter security.

“Marco,” I manage, gesturing back toward the corridor. “Retrieve him.”

Danny nods once. “Secondary team is already tasked. Clean extraction, full protocol.”

The assurance steadies something in me. Marco will receive appropriate handling. His body retrieved, and evidence eliminated. Small comfort, but necessary.

They guide us toward an armored SUV waiting just outside, engine running, windows tinted to opacity. The transition from the building to the vehicle passes in a blur of coordinated movement and professional efficiency. Lea remains at my side throughout, her presence a constant in the shifting chaos.

As we pull away from Purgatorio, I turn to watch through the rear window. The building recedes. My club, the center of my operations, the physical manifestation of everything I’ve built over the past decade. Now compromised. Violated. Stained with Marco’s blood.

In the SUV’s climate-controlled interior, the immediate danger receding, adrenaline begins its inevitable decline. Pain floods my awareness with renewed intensity. Each breath brings a stabbing reminder of broken ribs. Blood continues seeping through makeshift bandages applied by Danny’s team.

Lea sits beside me, her hands still stained with dried blood, mine and the man she killed to save me. The initial shock has faded from her expression, replaced by something harder, more resolute. She’s crossed a line tonight that cannot be uncrossed, transitioned from observer to participant in the violence that defines my world.

“He died because of me,” I say hoarsely. Not to Lea specifically, not to anyone in the vehicle. Simply a truth that demands acknowledgment, a failure I must own before I can address it.

Lea’s hand finds mine in the dim interior of the SUV, her fingers intertwining with mine in a gesture that should feel intrusive but somehow doesn’t. “He died protecting what matters to you,” she corrects, her voice soft but firm. “And so would you.”

I turn to look at her fully, really see her for perhaps the first time. This woman who just killed to preserve my life. Who’s witnessed me at my most vulnerable: wounded, failing, losing. Who should be running from me and my world as fast as possible, yet instead sits here, holding my hand, covered in blood that isn’t hers.

“Why’d you do it?” The question emerges unbidden, raw with genuine confusion. “Why save me?”

Lea meets my gaze, and for once there is no calculation in her eyes, no performance, no strategic positioning. Just raw, unfiltered honesty.

“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I just knew I couldn’t watch you die.”

The confession hangs between us as the SUV speeds toward Alessandro’s estate. My vision narrows, darkness creeping in at the periphery as blood loss and pain take their inevitable toll. The last image I register is Lea’s face above mine as consciousness slips away, determined and afraid, yet somehow still here despite everything she now knows about the reality of my world. And the last thought that follows me into darkness is unexpected, almost foreign in its simplicity: I don’t want her to leave.