Chapter 6 - The Charlestown Infiltration
The rain turned to hard, rattling hail as Roman and Serena crossed the Charlestown bridge in an unmarked black sedan Roman had retrieved from an auxiliary garage near TD Garden.
The heater blasted hot, dry air onto their faces, smelling of old upholstery and gun oil.
Serena held a spare Glock 19 on her lap, her good right hand resting easily on the grip. Roman had watched her check the chamber ten minutes ago; she had cleared it, inspected the extractor, and seated the magazine with the practiced efficiency of someone who had grown up in a house where violence was not a possibility, but a calendar event.
"You never told me you knew how to run a sidearm," Roman remarked, his eyes scanning the rear-view mirror for tails.
"My father had three daughters," she replied, staring straight ahead through the sweep of the wipers. "When the Belluccis put four rounds through our dining room window in ninety-nine, he decided none of his girls would die hiding in a pantry. My sisters hated the range. I didn't."
Roman let out a short, low breath that was almost a laugh. "We really were made for each other, weren't we?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Bellucci," she said, though a tiny, bruised smile touched the corner of her lips. "You're stubborn, you're paranoid, and your taste in wine is embarrassingly predictable."
"The wine is aged in oak from my grandfather’s vineyard."
"It tastes like wet wood," she said. Then the smile vanished, replaced by the dark, suffocating reality waiting for them three miles south. "Elias will have at least thirty men in that hall. Capos from the South Shore, the Valente elders who hate you, and the neutral factions who just want the shipping lanes reopened. You can't just shoot your way to the podium, Roman."
"I don't need to shoot thirty men," Roman said, turning the sedan down Commercial Street into the heart of the North End. The narrow, historic streets were empty, the red-brick townhouses shuttered tight against the freezing storm. "I only need to break the illusion. The council doesn't follow Elias because they love him. They follow him because they think he represents stability. They think I lost my mind over a woman and broke the peace."
"And if they don't care about the tape?" Serena asked, turning to face him. "What if they already know Elias did it, Roman? What if the council preferred your father dead because he was too rigid, too proud, too unwilling to let the drug shipments run through the seafood piers?"
Roman’s hands tightened on the leather steering wheel until his knuckles went dead white.
"Then I will bury the council," he said, "and run the city from their graves."
He parked the sedan two blocks away, in the shadow of the Old North Church.
The St. Anthony Society hall was an imposing two-story limestone building nestled between a private bakery and an espresso bar. Outside, four black Escalades and a dozen high-end sedans were parked haphazardly on the cobblestones, exhaust fumes billowing into the freezing night air like white steam from a slaughterhouse.
Six armed sentries stood beneath the green-and-white striped awning of the entrance, smoking cigarettes, their hands stuffed deep into the pockets of heavy parkas.
Roman stepped out into the hail. He wore a long black wool coat over his blood-stained shirt, his hands bare, his posture erect.
Serena stepped out beside him, pulling her collar up to conceal the bulky white bandage on her shoulder.
"Stay behind my right shoulder," Roman said quietly.
"Not a chance," she replied, stepping up until they walked stride for stride across the icy street.
The sentries saw them when they were thirty paces out.
Two cigarettes were instantly dropped into the slush. Hands moved toward coat zippers.
"Hold on," one of the younger guards yelled, stepping forward, his eyes widening in pure terror as he recognized the man approaching. "Mr. Bellucci? Elias said you were—"
Roman didn't slow down. He closed the distance in three violent strides, seized the young man by the throat with his bare left hand, and slammed him backward into the brick wall of the bakery with a sickening crack.
The other five guards froze, their hands caught inside their jackets, terrified to draw on the head of the family.
"Take your hands off your weapons," Roman commanded, his voice carrying the authority of twelve years of absolute command. "Or Marcus Reed will put a thirty-caliber round through your teeth from the belfry of that church."
The guards looked up toward the darkened steeple of the Old North Church, then at the blood splattered across Roman’s collar.
Slowly, carefully, five pairs of hands came out of five heavy coats, completely empty.
Roman released the choking guard, who slumped into the slush, gasping for air.
May you like
Roman turned the brass handle of the heavy mahogany doors of the St. Anthony hall and kicked them inward with the heel of his boot.
***