A security guard stands outside the privacy fence, and when he sees us, he grabs for his radio. Al pops him before he can hit the button to call, his gun making a quietpffftsound with the silencer on. Then we’re all out of the vehicle and racing through the gate onto a slate tile patio with a square of sod, an outdoor fire pit, and two enormous grills built into the brickwork. The entrance on the back of the building is at ground level, though there’s a set of stairs to a second-floor terrace with a second entrance. The terrace partially protects us from view on the second level, but the third floor offers us up for the picking. The large windows give an easy view of us—for Luciani and for anyone in the adjacent homes on either side.
They haven’t realized we’ve breached their guard, or they’d be shooting already. Al’s men fan out in pairs as instructed. Al and three of his men go in the back door while I follow Il Diavolo up the iron staircase to the second floor with two more guys. Just as my foot touches the terrace, I hear the muffled shot from a silenced gun, and a bullet pings off the stairs behind me.
“Fuck,” I mutter, drawing my own gun and aiming upwards. The terrace is exposed, with no cover, which means I’m all that stands between the shooter and the three other lives at risk right now. My eyes sweep the windows on the floor above us, all closed.
“No fire escape,” I mutter to the others, jerking my eyes at the top floor. “They have roof access.”
Another shot rings out, and I just spot the head of the shooter ducking back before I can get off a shot. But I know his position now, so I wait. One of our guys is cursing up a storm, and I know he’s hit. Il Diavolo races across the terrace in a crouch before lowering his shoulder and crashing into this thick glass. It splinters, raining down around him and crunching under his boots as he ducks inside. Another guy follows, then the last guy, cursing and bleeding from his arm, where he was hit. For a few seconds, I’m alone.
I wait in silence, adrenaline spiking through me with every heartbeat. When the head peaks over the edge of the roof, I get off another shot. I hear it connect, the cry that goes with it, and the guy slumps over on the roof. I take off, getting inside to some cover. For some reason I was expecting bedrooms, but of course this is the entry floor from the front, so I’m in a long living room with an exposed brick wall and a kitchen at the other end of the open floor plan.
At least it limits hiding places. The area is empty, but I hear the shouts of men downstairs and bursts of gunfire. Il Diavolo appears from a doorway at the far end of the kitchen, gesturing for me to follow. I run through the long living room crowded with overstuffed chairs, wincing when the wooden floorboards squeak underfoot. But it’s not like we’re being stealthy at this point. I duck through the white tiled kitchen with white-and-black marble countertops and duck through the doors into a small entry hallway. A guard lays face down on the floor, a pool of red spreading across the white tile. From there, we have access to the front door and the stairs.
Il Diavolo turns to the stairs, leveling his gun in front of him as he creeps up, his back flattened against the wall as he goes. I follow him up, covering the stairs behind us. The house is suddenly silent, the gunfire having ended below. I don’t know if they’ve already gotten the Lucianis, but we have to check the top floor, anyway. We don’t know how many people were in the house to begin with.
We reach a small landing, and Il Diavolo extends the silencer of his gun a few inches past the corner. Nothing. He edges forward, peering around. A gunshot sounds, and he jerks back. The bullet sinks into the wall behind us. I hear a creak and level my gun on the bottom of the stairs. A guy ducks around, his gun pointed straight at me. I almost shoot, at the last second realizing it’s one of our guys. I turn to Il Diavolo, who edges past the corner and squeezes off one round after another.
He ducks back into the hall. “Cover me,” he says, stopping to shove another magazine into his gun. Seconds later, he motions me forward. Together we step into a kitchenette area. A man lies slumped over the counter, another two on the floor. To the left, a small den sits empty. To the right, we can see into a bathroom, and beyond that, two closed doors.
We turn that way, but a slight rustling behind us catches Il Diavolo’s attention. He spins and shoots without time to even aim properly, and my first thought is that he shot the guy coming up behind me—one of Valenti’s guys. But the piercing scream hits my ears just as I turn. The Valenti guy is on the floor, and a pretty, fortyish woman huddles behind the rocker in the den, covering her mouth.
Il Diavolo aims and fires before I can say a word, and all I can think is that I’m next, that he’s going to take out any witnesses that he killed one of our men. The woman’s scream is cut off, and her body thuds back against the wall behind her before sliding sideways to the floor, leaving a streak of blood in her wake.
“We’re killing everyone?” I grit out. “Even the women?”
Il Diavolo strides into the den, kicking aside a chair, and drags the body up by her hair. A gun falls from her lap to the floor, and I see the hole in the rocker. It takes a second for me to put it together.Sheshot Valenti’s man. Il Diavolo shot her through the chair, and she screamed and dropped her gun. And then he killed her.
The way he tosses her body aside like a bag of trash and strides past me turns my stomach, but at least I know we’re not killing innocent bystanders. Il Diavolo gives me a disgusted grunt before heading for the closed bedroom doors.
Not a sound comes from either one. “Cover me,” Il Diavolo says before swinging open the door on the left.
A girl is kneeling in front of a safe, shoving bundles of money into a duffle. I know it’s Bianca by the cascade of wavy black hair, but she doesn’t turn to show her face until Il Diavolo strides into the room. He grabs her by the hair and yanks her backwards, sending her sprawling on the floor. “Would you look at that,” he says, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. “It’s the mouthy bitch who got you shot.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Bianca retorts, her tone defiant even as she struggles to rise while Il Diavolo drags her backwards across the floor, her body sliding on the hardwood.
“Want to cut her tongue out?” he asks me, shoving her head toward me.
“Not now,” I say. “We still need Luciani.”
“Where’s your dad?” Il Diavolo barks at Bianca, shaking her by the head. He maintains his grip on her hair as she flails and tries to pry his hand loose.
“I’m not turning in my dad to you monsters,” she snaps. “You can kill me first!”’
“He’s in that room, isn’t he?” Il Diavolo asks, a triumphant gleam in his eye as he drags Bianca to her feet. She looks like a doll against his giant form as he holds her in front of him.
As if in answer, a rain of bullets splinters the door from within.
“Unless you want to hit your daughter, stop shooting,” Il Diavolo shouts, ducking back into the adjacent bedroom.
“You sons of bitches are setting me up,” Luciani yells. “You don’t have my daughter. I told her to get out.”
“Tell him you’re here, or I’ll put you out of your misery right now,” Il Diavolo says, pressing the silencer of the gun to Bianca’s throat, still holding her pinned to his chest.
For the first time, fear writes itself across her face, as if she’s just realizing this is real. She can see out the open door to the handful of bodies spread across the kitchen.
“I—I’m here, Daddy,” she calls. “I was getting money from the safe. They caught me.”
“Good girl,” Il Diavolo growls, shoving her forward as he turns to the bedroom. I step in front, kicking down what’s left of the door and then jumping aside. No bullets come.Il Diavolo steps through the door, still holding Bianca in front of him, the muzzle of his gun pushing her chin up as he presses it to her throat. I step in behind him, edging in with my gun raised.