Chapter 8 - The Price of BloodThe smoke cleared to reveal two operatives flat on their backs in the frozen mud, clutching their ears and groaning in agony. The third had already retreated behind the engine block of the lead SUV, firing wild, panic-driven bursts of submachine gun fire into the wooden siding of the lodge.
Zip! Zip! Thud!
Bullets chewed up the cedar logs inches from my head. I didn't flinch. I tracked the muzzle flash from the SUV’s front tire, raised my Sig Sauer, and squeezed the trigger three times.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The front-left tire exploded with a loud hiss, sending the vehicle sagging heavily to one side.
Before the operative could reload, I vaulted off the porch, cleared the wooden railing in a single fluid motion, and sprinted through the brush toward the flank of the vehicle.
“Drop the weapon!” I commanded, slamming the barrel of my gun against the back of his tactical helmet.
The man froze, his hands trembling as he let his submachine gun drop into the mud.
“Who sent you?” I growled, grabbing his collar and spinning him around so I could stare into his visor. “Vance? Or one of his regional capos?”
The operative’s chest heaved behind his ballistic vest. He laughed—a pathetic, terrified sound.
“You think… you think Vance is the only one who wants those boys?” the man wheezed. “Moretti… you’ve got a bounty on your head across three continents. The syndicate council voted you out three days ago. Vance just got to them first because he wanted the kids as leverage for your empire!”
The words hit me like a splash of freezing water.
It wasn't just a family feud. It was a corporate coup.
While I had been mourning a dead wife and drowning my sorrows in bourbon, my own capos—men I had trusted, men I had elevated from the gutter—had conspired with Marcus Vance to strip me of my assets, my territory, and my children.
“Who signed off on the council vote?” I demanded, pressing the barrel harder against his throat.
The man’s eyes widened in sheer terror. “Sal… Salvatore Rossi. Your underboss.”
Salvatore.
My right hand. The man who managed my financial portfolios, who sat at my right side during every major summit, who had sworn an oath of blood on my father’s grave.
I lowered the gun an inch, my mind calculating the horrifying betrayal with ice-cold precision. Salvatore was back in Chicago right now, sitting in my executive suite, dividing up my empire with Marcus Vance’s lawyers.
He thought I was dead or running for my life.
He was about to get a very rude awakening.
“Get up,” I ordered the operative, hauling him to his feet by his tactical vest.
Ten minutes later, Elena and the four boys emerged from the drainage culvert as I drove the captured Black SUV up to the front steps of the lodge.
“Is it over?” Elena asked, bundling Mateo into the back seat alongside his brothers.
“No,” I said, sliding into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. “It’s just beginning. We’re going back to Chicago.”
“Chicago? Alejandro, that’s suicide! Salvatore and the whole council will be waiting for you!”
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I shifted the SUV into four-wheel drive, revving the twin-turbo engine until the exhaust growled through the frozen pines.
“Let them wait,” I said, my eyes fixed on the winding road leading south. “I have a betrayal to clean up. And then… we’re going to Switzerland.”
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