Chapter 4 - The Palermo Pipeline
The decision was made before the rain stopped. We couldn't stay in New York. St. Mary’s Hospital was a fortress, but against the full, multi-million-dollar extraction apparatus of the false Vittorio Bellaforte, it was only a matter of time before the facility became a slaughterhouse.
Using a private, retrofitted medical transport plane registered under a shell shipping company, we moved Elena out of New York at 3:00 AM. Along with her came Vittorio, Marco, and a team of three private trauma surgeons I had paid a million dollars each to ensure her medical care remained seamless mid-flight.
Our destination wasn't a safe house in the States. It was Palermo, Sicily.
"If we fight him in New York, he can hide behind his lawyers and his international diplomatic contacts," I explained to Marco as the plane leveled out over the Atlantic. "But in Palermo, he has to play by the old rules. The rules of the soil. We’re going to take his throne room before he even realizes we’ve left the city."
Elena was resting comfortably in the customized medical bay in the rear of the cabin, her vitals stable, the sedative drip keeping her under until we cleared European airspace.
I sat at the conference table with Vittorio, the silver key resting between us.
"The vault is located beneath the old Norman chapel in the hills of Monreale," Vittorio said, tracing a map of the Sicilian coast with a shaky finger. "It’s a subterranean fortress built during the Second World War to protect the family’s gold from the Allied invasion. Lorenzo has the electronic codes, but without this silver key and Elena’s biometric signature, the pneumatic locks will trigger a full termite destruction sequence. The entire asset base will be incinerated within ninety seconds."
"He won't get close enough to try," I said coldly. "Marco, what's the status of our local cell in Sicily?"
Marco looked up from his tactical tablet. "The Corleone and Capaci families are still loyal to the old Morelli alliance, boss. They’ve been waiting for a chance to push the Bellaforte out of the container docks for ten years. The moment we land, we’ll have fifty armed operators at our disposal. But Lorenzo isn't stupid. He’s already hired a private mercenary outfit from the Balkans—the 'Black Wolves.' They’re currently holding the perimeter around the Monreale estate."
I rubbed my jaw, the exhaustion of the last seventy-two hours finally catching up to me. I walked to the back of the plane, sliding open the privacy curtain to the medical bay.
The soft hum of the oxygen concentrator was the only sound. I sat in the small chair beside Elena’s bed, looking at her calm, sleeping face. She looked so innocent, so entirely disconnected from the blood and greed that had defined my existence since I was a boy.
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"You told me my nephew would live because you believed in the light, Elena," I whispered, gently touching the tips of her fingers. "I don't believe in the light. I never have. But I believe in you. And I’m going to make sure the darkness never touches you again."
Her fingers twitched slightly against mine, a faint, instinctual response that made my chest tighten with a feeling I had spent six months trying to kill. It wasn't just protection anymore. It was survival. If she died, the last piece of my humanity died with her.
