Chapter 8 - The Siege of Beacon Hill
Elias did not apologize. He did not beg.
With the speed of a striking viper, Elias pulled a nickel-plated .45 from beneath his lapel and leveled it straight at Roman’s face.
"He was weak!" Elias roared, his voice cracking into a manic scream that echoed off the high rafters. "Your father was going to surrender the docks to the feds! He was going to turn this entire organization into a legitimate logistics firm! We would have been paying taxes like suburban accountants! I built this empire with blood, and I won't let a boy and a Valente whore give it away!"
Before Elias could pull the trigger, Serena moved.
Ignoring the agonizing tear of the bullet wound in her shoulder, she lunged forward, grabbing a heavy brass water pitcher from the table and swinging it with both hands into the side of Elias’s face.
The blow landed with a dull *thud*.
The shot went wide, shattering a framed portrait of the 1954 Columbus Day parade on the wall behind Roman.
Chaos erupted.
Two of Elias’s loyalists drew their weapons, but Silas Kane was already moving. With a roar born of six years of hiding in bilge water, the old smuggler closed the distance, firing a short-barreled revolver through his coat pocket, dropping the nearest gunman where he stood.
Roman didn't draw. He vaulted over the conference table, scattering ledgers and coffee cups, tackling Elias to the floor behind the podium.
The two men crashed into the wooden stage. Elias snarled, gouging his thumbs toward Roman’s eyes, but Roman caught his cousin’s wrists, twisting them with brutal, mechanical precision until the bone snapped at the joint.
The .45 clattered across the floorboards.
Elias screamed, but Roman didn't stop. He dragged his cousin up by the lapels of his ruined coat, slamming him repeatedly against the oak wainscoting until Elias’s head slumped forward, blood pouring from his broken nose and split lips.
"Roman!" Don Carmine’s voice cut through the ringing gunshots.
Roman held Elias by the throat with one hand, his chest heaving, his eyes burning with the black fire of twelve years of grief.
The hall had fallen silent again. Silas stood over the two dead loyalists, his smoking weapon lowered. Antonio Valente was on his knees, his hands locked behind his head, guarded by two North End capos who had made their decision.
Marcus Reed stepped through the shattered front entrance, his tactical rifle held at the low ready, sweeping the room before nodding once to Roman.
Ellie was buried in Clara’s skirts, her mother’s hands covering her ears, though the child’s eyes were wide, watching Roman.
Don Carmine stepped forward, stepping over the broken glass and spilled coffee. He looked at Elias, whose breath came in ragged, bloody gasps, then at Roman.
"The council has heard the evidence," Don Carmine said, his voice formal, ancient, carrying the absolute weight of Boston’s underworld law. "Elias Bellucci broke the sacred peace of ninety-eight. He murdered his own blood. He ordered the slaughter of a brother’s child. His life is forfeit to the head of the Bellucci family."
Roman looked at his cousin.
The man who had taught him how to shoot a rifle at fourteen. The man who had sat beside him at his father’s wake, weeping into an expensive linen handkerchief. The man who had spent twelve years whispering poison into his ear, driving him into wars that had filled three cemeteries with young men.
"Why, Elias?" Roman asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "I would have given you half the city."
Elias spat a mouthful of blood onto Roman’s polished shoes. He gave a wet, broken laugh. "Because it was never yours to give, little boy. It was mine. It was always mine."
Roman did not raise his voice. He did not curse.
He reached down, picked up the .45 from the floor, and pressed the cold muzzle against the center of Elias’s forehead.
"No," Roman said softly. "It was my father's. And now it belongs to the future."
May you like
Roman pulled the trigger.
***