Chapter 4 - The Strike in Genoa
The rains returned to Liguria at midnight, turning the narrow, winding alleys of the Genoa port district into dark, reflective rivers of black asphalt and industrial grease.
Inside Warehouse 14—a massive, rusting corrugated-steel structure that smelled of salt, diesel, and rotting fish—twenty men sat around a burning oil drum. They were hard-faced men, armed with automatic rifles, their leather jackets damp from the sea fog.
At the head of a makeshift table sat Don Carmine Rossi, drinking cheap brandy from a plastic cup, surrounded by his remaining lieutenants and three burly Corsican mercenaries.
"The highway at kilometer 42 is locked down," one of the Corsicans said in rough, accented Italian, cleaning the lens of a high-powered sniper rifle. "When Callaway’s convoy passes through the mountain cut at eight tomorrow morning, we blow the lead vehicle with a rocket, and my boys pick off the rest from the ridge. Simple. Clean."
"I want his head," Carmine growled, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the flames in the drum. "I don't care about his money, I don't care about his trucks. I want Lorenzo Duca’s head in a box so I can throw it at the feet of that wretched maid."
"You shouldn't have brought the maid into it, Carmine," a voice echoed from the dark shadows above them.
The twenty men in the warehouse froze.
The voice hadn't come from the doors. It had come from the high steel catwalks thirty feet above the concrete floor.
"Who’s there?" Carmine screamed, jumping up from his chair, his brandy spilling over his trousers as his men scrambled for their rifles.
A single spotlight clicked on above the catwalk, blinding the men below.
Standing in the beam of light was Lorenzo Duca. He wore a heavy black tactical coat, a silenced submachine gun held casually in his hands. Beside him stood Marco and ten Duca operatives, their weapons already trained on the panicked crowd below.
"Lorenzo!" Carmine gasped, backing away toward the rear loading dock. "How... how did you find this place?"
"Your daughter has terrible security protocols, Carmine," Lorenzo said, his voice echoing loudly through the vast metallic space. "She thought she was playing me against you. She didn't realize I’ve owned the port authority’s camera feed in Genoa for six years."
"Kill him!" Carmine roared, pointing frantically at the catwalk. "Kill him now!"
The warehouse erupted into gunfire.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the darkness like violent lightning, the sharp clack-clack-clack of automatic weapons tearing through the damp air. But Lorenzo’s men had the high ground and absolute surprise.
Within ninety seconds, the shooting was over.
The Corsican rifles lay abandoned on the wet concrete. Carmine’s lieutenants were on their knees, hands behind their heads, covered by Marco’s men who had swept in through the side doors.
In the center of the floor, slumped against a stack of wooden pallets, was Don Carmine Rossi. He was clutching a wound in his shoulder, his face pale, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.
Lorenzo descended the iron staircase slowly, his heavy boots clicking on the metal steps until he stood before the wounded old Don.
"Isabella..." Carmine wheezed, blood flecking his lips as he looked up at his rival. "She... she betrayed me?"
"She offered to sell you for a share of my empire," Lorenzo said softly, dropping down onto one knee before the fallen Don—the third time he had knelt, but this time, with no warmth in his heart. "She is currently being detained at the border by my men. She will spend the rest of her life in a quiet convent in the mountains, far away from Genoa, far away from money."
Carmine closed his eyes, a bitter, broken groan escaping his chest. "You're a monster, Lorenzo..."
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"No, Carmine," Lorenzo whispered, pressing the cold steel barrel of his suppressed sidearm against the old man's forehead. "A monster kills indiscriminately. I am simply a man who cleans his house."
A single, muffled shot echoed through the empty warehouse, lost instantly to the roar of the rain outside.
