PART 7: Wolves at the Perimeter
PART 7: Wolves at the Perimeter
Iron security gates face violent tests.
The test came on a freezing Tuesday night in late November.
I was in my study reviewing a commercial property acquisition ledger when the estate’s automated security alarms shrieked to life, flashing a bright, pulsing crimson across my dual monitors.
Perimeter breach. Sector Four: Western Service Gate.
I didn't hesitate.
I pulled a Beretta 9mm from the hidden drawer beneath my desk, chambered a round with a sharp, metallic click, and stepped out into the hallway.
Viktor was already jogging up the stairs, holding an encrypted tactical radio.
"Boss, we've got an unauthorized convoy of three unmarked SUVs ramming the secondary service gate," Viktor reported crisply. "Looks like Dante Moretti’s cleanup crew. They must have caught wind that we've been scaling back our dock operations."
Dante Moretti.
A brutal, unpredictable capo from the North Side who had been trying to muscle in on my territory for months, testing my resolve while rumors of my mother's failing health circulated through the underworld.
"How many men?" I asked, my voice instantly freezing into the cold, lethal register of a syndicate boss.
"At least ten, heavily armed. They bypassed the outer cameras using military-grade signal jammers."
My blood ran cold.
Not for myself.
For Clara and my mother, sleeping in the east wing of the mansion.
"Get our tactical team deployed to the courtyard," I ordered, striding down the hallway toward the master quarters. "Do not let them reach the main house. If anyone so much as steps foot on the porch, put them in the ground."
"Understood, boss."
I rushed down the corridor, bursting into the hallway outside my mother's room.
The door was already open.
Clara was standing there, wearing an oversized flannel pajama shirt, her eyes wide with terror as distant pops of suppressed gunfire echoed from the perimeter gates down the hill.
"Bennett? What's happening?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Moretti's men," I said quickly, grabbing her arm and guiding her inside the room where my mother was sitting up in bed, awake and alert despite the commotion. "Get in the safe room behind the bookcase. Do not come out until I unlock it from the outside."
"What about you?" Clara demanded, grabbing my wrist. "You're going out there?"
I looked down at her hand on my wrist—warm, steady, and entirely innocent of the violence that defined my world.
"This is my house, Clara," I said quietly, gently removing her hand. "And nobody touches my family."
I turned around, slamming the heavy steel-reinforced safe room door shut, spinning the combination lock, and stepping back out into the hallway just as Viktor reached the top of the stairs with an assault rifle slung across his chest.
"They breached the courtyard, boss!" Viktor shouted over the sound of shattering glass downstairs. "They're trying to set fire to the south foyer!"
I raised my Beretta, a dark, murderous fury surging through my veins.
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Dante Moretti thought my mother's illness and my newfound humanity had made me soft.
He was about to learn that beneath the quiet dinners and the late-night tea, the Ghost of the D'Amico War was still wide awake.
