Chapter 3 - The Ambush at the Docks
"Down!" Dante roared, throwing his body over Elena as drywall dust exploded around them.
Suppressed gunfire chewed through the wooden front door. Victor’s men had tracked Dante's Maybach or monitored the movements around the North End meeting he had skipped.
Dante pulled his customized Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster. He reached into his coat and slapped his encrypted comms device. "Nico! We have hostile snipers on the East Boston docks! North-side roof! Move in now!"
"Boss! We're surrounded by unmarked SUVs—it's a clean-up squad!" Nico’s voice crackled through the comms amidst the distant sound of automatic rifle fire from the street below.
Inside the apartment, the bedroom door flew open. Clara, Mia, and Lily were screaming, covering their ears from the deafening sound of shattering wood and glass.
Dante didn't hesitate. He grabbed Elena by the waist with one arm, hauled her to her feet, and kicked open the bedroom door. "Get under the bed!" he commanded the girls. "Elena, stay with them!"
"Dante, no!" Elena grabbed his lapel. "Don't leave us!"
"I spent seven years dead inside, Elena," Dante said, looking her dead in the eye as the hallway wall splintered from incoming bullets. "Nobody touches my family again."
Dante ducked into the hallway, firing three precise shots through the wooden doorframe. Two masked gunmen carrying submachine guns collapsed backward onto the staircase landing. Dante advanced down the hallway with lethal, cold precision, clearing the floor step by step.
He reached the window facing the alleyway, kicking out the remaining glass and firing down at the driver of an incoming black SUV. The vehicle swerved and smashed into a industrial dumpster, blocking the alley.
Nico and three Russo enforcers burst up the back fire escape, covered in rain and soot. "The perimeter's clear for thirty seconds, Boss! We need to move!"
Dante sprinted back into the apartment. He didn't ask questions; he scooped up Mia and Lily in his left arm and wrapped his right arm around Elena. Clara clung fiercely to her mother's waist.
"We go to the Safehouse in the Berkshires," Dante barked at Nico as they rushed down the rear fire escape into the freezing darkness of the Boston night. "Call my personal physician. Set up an entire medical floor. And tell Vance to mobilize every soldier loyal to my name."
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As the Maybach sped away from the burning tenement district, Dante looked back. The apartment building where his family had suffered in poverty was engulfed in smoke. Next to him, Elena held the three weeping girls against her chest. Dante reached out, wrapping his massive hand over all of theirs.
"It's over," Dante whispered. "The hiding is over."
