Chapter 6 - The Girl in the Nursery
The east wing was dead silent.
While the sounds of gunfire echoed like distant thunder through the masonry of the western and southern corridors, the nursery remained an oasis of pale blue light and artificial quiet.
Nina sat cross-legged on the plush nursery rug, her one-eared rabbit clutched tightly in her small arms. She wasn't crying. Three-year-olds didn't understand gunshots; they only understood when the adults around them stopped smiling. And Marina hadn't smiled since they got into the back of Dante’s car six months ago.
In the crib, Livia was awake, sitting up and clutching the wooden slats with both hands, her pale blue eyes wide and fixed on the door.
The heavy oak door—the one Damiano had locked with his master key just hours earlier—didn't rattle.
It exploded.
A heavy metal charge blew the hinges straight out of the masonry, sending the entire oak slab crashing inward across the floor. Dust and gray smoke billowed into the pristine room, ruining the lavender scent with the stench of burning powder.
A man stepped through the smoke. He wasn't wearing tactical gear; he wore an expensive, Italian-tailored suit that was already stained with soot. In his right hand, he held a nickel-plated Sig Sauer.
Frank Marcone.
He looked older than his fifty years, his face lined with the permanent, paranoid scowl of a man who knew his empire was slipping through his fingers. His eyes scanned the room, bypassing the crib entirely until they landed on the small, huddled figure of Nina sitting by the armchair.
"Well, well," Marcone rasped, a cruel, ugly smile stretching across his lips. "Leo’s little brat. And here I thought we’d have to tear the whole county apart to find where the rat hid his nest."
Nina shrunk back against the armchair, clutching her rabbit so hard her small knuckles turned white. She didn't make a sound.
Marcone raised the nickel-plated pistol, the barrel catching the pale nursery light. "Tell me where your mother hid the book, little girl, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll let you crawl back into the dirt where you belong."
"Put the gun down, Frank."
The voice came from the shattered doorway.
Marcone whipped around, raising his weapon, but stopped dead.
Damiano Serrano stood in the threshold. He wasn't holding his MP5 anymore. His hands were empty, hanging loosely at his sides, but his eyes—those pale, merciless ice-blue eyes—were locked onto Marcone with a terrifying, absolute finality.
"Damiano," Marcone sneered, lowering the barrel just a fraction to center it on Damiano’s chest. "I hear you’ve been playing domestic. Raising a baby all by yourself in a tomb. How’s that working out for you?"
"Drop the gun, Frank," Damiano repeated, his voice dropping into a register so cold it seemed to freeze the air between them. "You're in my house."
"Your house?" Marcone laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "This house is a mausoleum, Serrano! You’ve been hiding behind these walls ever since your wife caught that bullet meant for you! You think you're a kingpin? You're a ghost! And I’m about to put you out of your misery."
Marcone’s finger tightened on the trigger.
He didn't fire.
From behind him, a small, barefoot figure scrambled out from behind the heavy armchair. Star-print pajamas trailing on the floor, her face streaked with dust, Nina didn't run away from the danger. She ran straight toward it.
She didn't aim for Marcone. She aimed for the crib.
With surprising speed, the three-year-old launched herself upward, her small hands grabbing the wooden rail of Livia’s crib just as Marcone swung his arm around, annoyed by the distraction, his boot kicking out blindly to knock the child away.
"Get out of my way, you little rat—"
Damiano didn't walk. He moved.
The speed of a man who had fought his way up from the asphalt of Little Italy when Marcone was still shining shoes in Brooklyn was a terrifying thing to witness. In the space of a single heartbeat, Damiano crossed the ten-foot room.
Before Marcone’s boot could connect with the child, Damiano’s hand shot out like a hydraulic press, catching Marcone’s ankle mid-air and twisting with brutal, bone-snapping force.
Marcone shrieked, losing his balance and crashing hard onto the hardwood floor, his pistol skidding across the nursery rug and coming to rest against the baseboard near the crib.
Damiano didn't look at the gun. He stood over Marcone, his face a mask of cold, ancient fury.
"You pointed a weapon," Damiano said softly, his voice trembling with a rage he hadn't allowed himself to feel since the day Valentina died, "at a child in my house."
Marcone scrambled backward, clutching his broken ankle, his face turning the color of wet ash. "Wait—Damiano—we can talk—the harbor contract—it’s yours, all of it, just take the docks—"
Damiano didn't let him finish. He reached down, grabbed Marcone by the lapels of his expensive suit, and hoisted the grown man off the floor with one hand as if he weighed nothing at all. He carried him straight to the shattered window overlooking the three-acre drop to the limestone cliffs below.
"You thought I was hiding behind these walls, Frank," Damiano whispered into Marcone’s ear, the wind whipping through the broken frame. "You thought absence was weakness."
He pushed Marcone outward, holding him suspended over the empty air by his collar alone.
"Please," Marcone choked out, his fingers clawing at Damiano’s wrists. "Please—"
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"Tell Valentina I said hello," Damiano said.
And he let go.
