Chapter 5 - A Debt in Blood
The attack came at two in the morning, not at the mansion, but where Vincent had anticipated it would hurt most.
At 2:15 AM, three black SUVs with blacked-out plates pulled up outside Castellano’s diner on 5th Avenue.
Four men in tactical vests, carrying short-barreled automatic shotguns and incendiary bottles, stepped out into the empty street. They were Arthur Lawson’s remaining dock enforcers, backed by three hired mercenaries Raymond Fletcher had dispatched from Chicago on an afternoon flight.
Their orders were brutal and simple: burn the diner to the ground, murder whoever was inside cleaning, and leave a painted message on the sidewalk demanding the girl be surrendered at Pier 42 by sunrise.
The lead gunman kicked the diner’s front glass door.
The heavy glass shattered with a deafening crash, the brass bell ringing wildly as it tumbled to the floor among jagged shards. The gunman raised a Molotov cocktail, flicking his lighter.
"Light it up!" he yelled.
From the darkened shadows behind the counter, a voice answered: "You're late."
Muzzle flashes ripped through the darkness before the gasoline bottle could ignite.
Luca and five Castellano soldiers were already inside, crouched behind reinforced steel plates that Tony had welded beneath the diner’s counters two days prior. The roar of suppressed automatic fire was relentless, precise, and devastating.
The man holding the firebomb was hit four times in the chest; the bottle dropped from his fingers, exploding across his own legs in a burst of roaring orange flame. His screams tore through the quiet avenue as he collapsed onto the sidewalk, rolling in agony.
The other two gunmen tried to scramble back toward their SUVs, but behind them, a heavy garbage truck belonging to the city sanitation department roared into reverse, smashing directly into the front grille of the lead SUV with the force of an artillery shell.
Marco stepped out of the shadows of the alleyway, flanked by four men carrying heavy rifles.
Within ninety seconds, the street went dead silent again, save for the crackling of the small fire on the asphalt and the groans of two wounded Chicago gunmen pinned beneath the crumpled metal of their vehicles.
Inside the Bay Ridge library, the red landline phone on Vincent’s desk rang twice.
Vincent picked it up. He listened for ten seconds, Amelia sitting rigid on the leather sofa opposite him, her hands clamped tightly around a porcelain teacup.
"Casualties?" Vincent asked into the receiver.
A brief pause.
"Good," Vincent said. "Keep the Chicago men alive. Take them to the basement at the Gowanus yard. Have Dr. Rossi patch their holes just enough so they can talk. I want Raymond Fletcher’s hotel room number within the hour."
He hung up the phone.
Amelia looked at him, her face completely drained of color. "Angela? Tony?"
"They were moved to my sister's house in Staten Island yesterday afternoon," Vincent said smoothly, walking around the desk. "The diner was empty. No innocent blood was shed."
Amelia slumped back against the sofa cushions, burying her face in her trembling hands. "They attacked the diner... they really tried to burn it down..."
"They attempted an act of desperation," Vincent said, pulling a heavy silver pocket watch from his vest and checking the hour. "Arthur Lawson has run out of moves. He thought he could frighten me into a negotiation. He forgot that fear is a currency I printed before his father wore long pants."
He looked at Amelia. Her small shoulders were shaking, but she was not crying anymore. The terror had reached its peak, and beneath the terror, something else was beginning to stir—something hard, bright, and forged by years of survival.
"You are angry," Vincent observed quietly.
Amelia lowered her hands. Her brown eyes, usually soft and guarded, were blazing with an intensity Vincent had never seen in her before.
"I spent three years hiding in closets," she whispered, her voice shaking with controlled fury. "I changed my hair, I changed my name, I flinched every time a car door slammed outside my window. I let Derek hit me because I thought if I didn't make a sound, the world would let me disappear."
She stood up, walking toward Vincent until she was standing barely two feet from him.
"I don't want to run anymore, Mr. Castellano. If Raymond is in this city, if he’s using those men to hunt me down, I want him to know that I am not his victim anymore."
Vincent looked down at her. For the first time since she had arrived at his estate, his mouth curved into a genuine, faint smile—a look of profound, aristocratic admiration.
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"A lion does not need to roar to be respected, Amelia," Vincent said softly. "It only needs to show its teeth once. Tonight, you will show him."
***