Page 45 of Heart's Temptation
We piled into four bulletproof vehicles and headed for the docks. The Vitale empire owned many buildings and businesses, one of which was a yacht club under an untraceable dummy company. The Russians wouldn’t know about it, or the secret passage from there to the warehouse they were currently hiding in. The one where we kept our jewelry imports, or had until Fausto recently changed everything to protect our merchandise. Our stuff hadn’t been passing through that particular warehouse for a few weeks, and all the crates inside were empty.
I wished I could have seen those bastards’ faces when they opened the crates and the riches they hoped to steal weren’t there. That would have been priceless. One of the younger cousins had been running the ground transportation from Jersey and it was a good thing too, or the brothers would have had a fortune in repayments to make to clients.
“Do we have a location on Niki yet?” Unfortunately for me, I’d not yet been caught up on everything as plans were moving swiftly.
“Simon is working on it, but we think outskirts of New York somewhere.”
“Why there?”
“The Russians and Liam, we don’t know about the rest of the Éannas… if they know how deep they are in with the Russian mob. Romeo thinks they are patsies for Liam, but that is a very large beast to defy. Anyway, Simon caught footage of Natalia Makarova leaving Niki’s old apartment building and the last cam image was of her heading out of town in that direction.”
That seemed like a huge jump in logic to me.
“She and Sergei have a home in Scarsdale. It was hard for Simon to find, and it was only through a connection he found between them and Knyazev and a container filled with stolen treasures that he was able to find the house. Liam Kelly was seen leaving the city around the same time and headed in the same direction. We’re assuming the house is well protected, but Kelly may be stupid enough to think that this Russian attack is under the radar, and we might not live to follow them. That stupid shit should never underestimate a Vitale.”
I’d cheer to that later with a large tumbler of my favorite scotch if we made it out of this alive. We may have had the advantage of knowing what was waiting for us, but the risk was still high.
We pulled into the yacht club and the soldiers already stationed there quickly took our vehicles and hid them under the great yawning canvases that held the more expensive boats.
Once inside, Romeo pulled us all together. “Okay men, this is it. Remember, wait for Simo to give the signal. Then we’ll show these Russians bums what the Italians are made of.”
A cheer went up with lots of back slapping before he continued.
“Remember, we need to search for Nicolette and Amergio as both are still missing. Those fuckers better pray we find them alive. Also, a few living bodies would be nice, aiming to injure a few so we can interrogate them. Capisce!”
“Io capisco!”
Damn right we understood. I was itching to get this charade over with and get our girl back in our bed where she belonged. I refused to think about what Liam Kelly was doing to her, vowing I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
I silently recited Niki’s prayer to Mary while we followed Simo through the tunnel. We silently shuffled into the warehouse to find Fausto waiting for us. His dark, swarthy looks reminded me so much of Romeo. Funny how Gaetano and the two of them could almost be mistaken for triplets, since Tano was born a Di Mauro.
Romeo was back at the yacht club in front of a bank of monitors. Simo had finally convinced him that they needed someone to stay back who could see all three sets of our men and orchestrate our attack from this vantage point. When Romeo had argued that it could be anyone, Tano stepped in and said the commands to the ground leaders needed to come from the boss so there would be no mistakes.
Romeo, despite his capabilities, needed to remain safe. He had a wife, a newborn and was the leader, the Don and very well respected here and in Southern Italy where the family was originally from. They still owned a winery estate there that was over four hundred years old.
“Where’s Tony?” Gio asked Fausto. “I thought he’d be here with you.”
“He’s with the soldiers from the boats. We both know Tony is stealthy and has probably already taken out half a dozen men without anyone the wiser.”
I smirked; Fausto was probably right. Tony also loved the action and was usually the first one on scene where a fight was about to break out.
Fausto’s phone pinged with an incoming message, and he looked down before reading it off. “Romeo says the countdown is on. We should hear shouts when Tony’s innocuous cherry bombs go off. The sharpshooters will pick off anyone stumbling out, then we’ll charge in from the back, while the team from the boat charges in from the front.”
There was a small boom followed by cries of surprise.
“Get in position,” Gio commanded.
Fausto stood at the back door, and when the guards rushed inside the building, we followed them in. I stayed by Gio, as he pushed his way down the right side of the warehouse. With sunlight pouring in from the front and misty smoke, it was almost impossible to see the features of the men ahead of us and I hoped no one from the home team shot each other by accident.
Gio had a gun in either hand; being ambidextrous was a definite advantage in a shootout. He took the lead down the right side of the building, shooting left and straight ahead at the same time, reminding me of an old-time gunslinger from the west, his black pants and the jacket that covered his vest adding to his devilish persona.
All around us was gunfire, and shouts in both Italian and Russian. The hair rose on my arms, and I looked up to see Russians firing from the second level and a stealthy shadow moving toward them.
Antonio.
Gio and I took cover behind a wide pillar and started shooting at the men on the upper level while Tony snuck in from behind and took out the ones focused on us, before seeming to vaporize before my eyes. One day, I’d have to ask him to teach me that trick.