Chapter 12 - Blood on the Marble
The meeting with Don Rossi took place in the private wine cellar beneath the Drake Hotel.
The room smelled of damp oak, aged cabernet, and old cigar smoke. Don Rossi, an eighty-year-old patriarch with thinning white hair and liver-spotted hands, sat across a heavy oak table from Dominic.
“Dominic,” Rossi rasped, his voice like gravel grinding under water. “Cross offered me his logistics network for pennies on the dollar. He wants five million cash transferred to an account in Belgrade.”
“And what did you tell him, Don Rossi?” Dominic asked, leaning back in his chair, Caleb standing like a stone statue behind his right shoulder.
Rossi took a slow sip of red wine. “I told him that Julian Cross is a dead man walking. And the Rossi family does not do business with corpses.”
Dominic nodded slightly. “Then why call me here?”
Rossi set his glass down, his ancient eyes sharpening with sudden urgency.
“Because the Belgrade account was funded forty-eight hours ago, Dominic. Not by me. Cross had a contingency trust. He hired the Voronin brothers out of Brooklyn.”
Dominic’s blood ran ice-cold.
The Voronin brothers were Russian contract specialists—not street thugs, not syndicate soldiers, but ex-Spetsnaz operators who used military-grade hardware and never failed an extraction.
Dominic didn't say another word. He stood up so violently his chair crashed backward against the stone wall.
He pulled his phone. He dialed the estate.
The line rang four times.
Five times.
No answer.
Dominic turned to Caleb, his eyes wild with a feral panic no man had ever seen in Dominic Vale.
May you like
“The estate,” Dominic roared. “Every car! *Move!*”
***