Chapter 19 - The Wrath of Castellano
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Dante Castellano hadn't been inside the lead SUV when the Congress Street tunnel ramp collapsed downtown.
Having smelled Uncle Corrado’s federal rat from the moment Nico intercepted the wire logs that morning, Dante had sent two decoy remote-piloted Suburbans into the bank garage while he and his main strike team waited two miles away on the Mass Pike—turning around the instant the estate’s perimeter alarm tripped.
What happened on the second floor of the Chestnut Hill manor over the next three minutes wasn't a firefight; it was an extermination.
Inside the locked master bathroom, cradling Leo’s tiny head against her heart with her hands covering his ears, Tessa heard the thunderous roar of combat shotguns and automatic weapons sweeping down the gallery corridor outside.
Shouts of panic from Don Rossi’s Brooklyn crew turned into short, choked screams as Dante and Nico tore through the hallway from both ends like twin scythes.
Seconds later, the splintered oak door of the master bedroom was kicked the rest of the way open.
"Tessa!" Dante’s voice boomed through the smoke, raw with a terror that made the walls shake.
"In here—Dante, we're in here! We're okay!" Tessa cried out, unlocking the heavy marble bathroom door and stepping out into the bedroom.
Dante stood in the center of the ruined room. His black dress shirt was torn at the shoulder and streaked with gray concrete dust and someone else’s crimson blood, a smoking combat shotgun held in his left hand.
The moment his dark eyes landed on Tessa and saw Leo sleeping safely inside the padded carrier against her chest, he dropped the shotgun onto the carpet and swept them both into his arms with a force that lifted Tessa’s feet straight off the floor.
"Thank God," Dante breathed raggedly, burying his face into the crook of her neck as his whole body trembled with the violent release of adrenaline. He kissed her temple, her cheek, her mouth, and the top of Leo’s dark head in frantic succession. "When I saw the smoke coming from the boathouse on the drive up... cristo, Tessa, my heart stopped."
"I told you," Tessa whispered through tears of relief, her fingers clutching the back of his torn shirt as she looked past his shoulder at the doorway where Special Agent Vance lay dead on the hallway rug. "Nobody takes our son while I'm breathing."
Dante glanced back at Vance’s body with two tight bullet holes right above the collar of his federal Kevlar vest, then looked back at the compact Glock still gripped in Tessa’s hand. Through the dark fury in his eyes broke a flash of fierce, savage pride.
"My wife," Dante murmured huskily against her lips, "is more dangerous than half my captains."
"Boss," Nico called out from the top of the grand staircase outside, where four of his soldiers were dragging a bleeding, one-armed man in a torn suit down the steps by his collar. "We cleared the boathouse and sank both of their boats in the reservoir. Every shooter Rossi brought with him is dead—except for Don Salvatore himself. Took a round through the shoulder trying to jump off the east terrace."
Dante’s expression turned back to solid black marble.
Gently, he led Tessa and Leo into the untouched second-floor nursery next door, where Marco and six guards stood watch over the windows.
"Stay with Leo for ten minutes, tesoro," Dante said quietly, kissing her knuckles. "I’m going to finish this war so our son never has to hear another gunshot for the rest of his life."
Fifteen minutes later, down on the stone pier of the private lakefront, Don Salvatore Rossi knelt at the edge of the dark water while Dante stood over him with a satellite video phone held up in his hand—broadcasting live to the remaining four syndicate heads in New York and Chicago.
"Salvatore Rossi broke the blood peace of the Commission," Dante told the camera coldly, showing the dead federal agent’s badge alongside the recording of Nurse Elena’s confession from the night before. "He hired a federal dog, sent an assassin into my infant son’s nursery, and came into my home with guns. As of today, the Rossi family ceases to exist. Brooklyn’s piers now belong to Boston. Does anyone at the table object?"
On the screen, the four oldest Dons in America looked at the blood-stained titan standing on the dock and slowly shook their heads in unison.
May you like
"No objections, Don Castellano. The peace is yours."
Dante ended the call, tossed the phone to Nico, and kicked Salvatore Rossi into the deep black water of the reservoir—ending fifty years of war in a single splash.
