Chapter 2 - The Cellar of Shadows
The concrete floor was ice-cold beneath Damiano’s knees, but he did not feel it. What he felt was the blunt, heavy impact of a wooden club against the base of his skull—a blow delivered from behind the moment he opened the heavy oak door at the top of the tunnel stairs.
He did not black out, though the dark room spun in sickening, violet-tinted circles around him. Blood—warm, thick, and metallic—dribbled down his neck, soaking into the pristine white collar of his dress shirt.
Before his hands could move toward the gun beneath his left armpit, three men hit him at once. Heavy, iron-like hands pinned his wrists against the cold stone floor. A heavy knee crushed his spine downward.
"Don't move, Boss," a voice rasped above him. It was a voice he had trusted for eleven years. The voice of Carlo Vitale. "You move, and Stefano gets another hole in his forehead. He's already bleeding out by the boathouse."
Damiano’s cheek was pressed hard against the gritty concrete. He did not scream. He did not curse. He simply forced his eyes to focus through the haze of pain.
Through the dim, yellow glare of a single hanging bulb in the center of the estate's subterranean wine cellar, Damiano saw four men. Three were mercenary cutthroats hired from the Brooklyn docks—heavy, silent men armed with silenced pistols. The fourth was Carlo.
Carlo stood over him, holding a heavy iron key to the estate's heavy oak doors. His limp was pronounced, his right leg dragging slightly as he walked around Damiano like a vulture circling a dying beast.
"Carlo," Damiano said, his voice a low, raspy whisper that barely carried across the damp room. "The warehouse... was a lie."
"Of course it was a lie, Damiano," Carlo sneered, kneeling down and grabbing Damiano by his hair, pulling his head back violently. "You're too smart to kill on the open street. If you die in a drive-by, your capos raise hell and demand blood. But if you disappear inside your own locked fortress... if you vanish while the city thinks you're hiding... then I step in. The loyal lieutenant, mourning his lost leader, taking the reins to keep the peace."
Carlo pulled a heavy set of iron chains from a burlap sack near the cellar wall.
"Bind his arms behind his back," Carlo ordered the mercenaries. "Tie him to the support pillar. Use the heavy industrial locks. Salvatore wants him alive until the bank transfer clears at noon."
The mercenaries moved with practiced brutality. They hauled Damiano up, dragging his body to the ancient stone pillar in the center of the subterranean vault. Heavy, cold steel chains were wrapped tightly around his chest, shoulders, and wrists, binding him so tightly against the stone that he could barely expand his lungs to breathe.
Damiano’s black leather gloves were yanked from his hands and tossed carelessly onto the dirt floor.
Carlo stepped forward, reaching into Damiano’s jacket. His fingers brushed against the hard shape in the breast pocket. He pulled out the steel pocket watch—the watch Damiano’s father had given him in Queens thirty years ago.
"Look at this," Carlo mocked, holding the watch up to the dim light. "Il tempo è tutto. Time is everything. Well, Damiano, your time is up."
"You sold your soul to Salvatore Conti for two point three million," Damiano said flatly, his dark eyes burning into Carlo’s soul despite the blood running down his face. "He will kill you the moment the transfer clears. You know how Salvatore operates. He leaves no witnesses."
Carlo’s arrogant smile flickered for a fraction of a second, a shadow of doubt passing over his eyes, but he quickly masked it with a cruel chuckle. He slipped the pocket watch into his own pocket.
"Salvatore pays on time," Carlo spat. "And by noon tomorrow, I’ll be on a private jet to Geneva while the capos in New York tear each other apart looking for you."
Carlo turned to the three mercenaries. "Watch him. If he tries to speak, gag him. I’m going upstairs to secure the house. The maid and her brat are still asleep on the third floor. I’ll deal with them before the sun comes up."
Damiano’s heart slammed against his ribs with sudden, terrifying force. Not for his own life—he had faced death a hundred times in the dark corners of the city. But the thought of Carlo’s cold, mercenary hands touching Lucia or three-year-old Lina sent a jolt of pure, adrenaline-fueled fury through his veins.
"Carlo!" Damiano roared, his voice echoing through the stone arches of the vault, the chains rattling violently as he strained against them. "If you lay a single finger on the child, I will drag you to hell with my bare hands!"
Carlo didn't even turn around. He pushed open the heavy iron door leading up to the kitchen pantry, stepped through, and locked it from the outside with a heavy brass key.
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Silence descended upon the cellar once more, broken only by the rhythmic dripping of water from a cracked pipe and the heavy breathing of the three armed guards sitting on crates near the door, their weapons rested across their knees.
Damiano slumped against the cold stone pillar, his bare hands numb, his neck slick with blood. He closed his eyes, forcing his mind to clear. He was chained to a pillar thirty feet below the ground, stripped of his weapons, guarded by three killers, and the only two people who cared for him in this vast, lonely house were fast asleep above, completely unaware that a executioner was walking up the stairs.
