Chapter 8 - The Fall of Boston
“Come back here, you coward scum!” Callahan screamed at his retreating men, his voice cracking with rage and desperation.
None of them turned around. The sound of SUV doors slamming shut echoed through the warehouse, followed by the roar of engines as Callahan’s entire strike force abandoned him to the rain.
Callahan turned back, his hands shaking violently as he pulled his nickel-plated revolver from his coat, aiming it directly at Dante’s face.
“I’ll kill you myself!” Callahan roared.
Before Callahan’s finger could put pressure on the trigger, a sharp gunshot rang out from the shadows above the rafters.
Callahan gasped. The revolver dropped from his bloodied hand, clattering against the wet concrete floor. He stumbled backward, clutching his shattered right shoulder, falling heavily onto his knees.
High above on the iron catwalk, Marco lowered his suppressed sniper rifle.
Dante didn't even move. He casually stepped over the fallen revolver, standing over the broken man who had terrorized Clara for four long years.
“You spent four years hunting a mother and a child,” Dante said softly, looking down at Callahan with absolute disgust. “You made them sleep on cold floors, eat scraps, and live in constant terror.”
“Please... Dante...” Callahan whimpered, clutching his bleeding shoulder, all his arrogance completely evaporated. “We... we were business partners once...”
“Business partners don't touch family,” Dante said.
He reached down, grabbed Callahan by his heavy collar, and dragged him effortlessly across the wet floor toward the open edge of the pier, where thirty feet of black, churning Atlantic water crashed against the wooden pilings below.
Dante held Callahan suspended over the dark ocean.
“The federal marshals are waiting at the main road,” Dante whispered into the old man’s ear. “If I drop you, the tide will sweep you out into the bay within five minutes. If I hand you to them, you will spend your remaining years in a federal maximum-security prison.”
Callahan wept, his body trembling over the dark water. “The marshals! Give me to the marshals! Please!”
Dante held him over the edge for three agonizing seconds.
Then he tossed Callahan backward onto the concrete like a sack of trash, where Marco immediately stepped forward with heavy steel handcuffs.
“Take him away,” Dante ordered coldly, wiping his hands with a white handkerchief. “Clean up the pier.”
Dante turned and walked back toward his limousine. He pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed speed dial.
The line rang twice before Clara’s soft voice came through the speaker.
“Dante?”
The cold, lethal mask on Dante’s face melted instantly into a look of absolute warmth and devotion.
“It’s done, Clara,” Dante said, his voice deep and gentle. “Callahan is gone. You and Lily are free.”
May you like
On the other end of the line, Dante heard Clara let out a long, shuddering sob of pure relief.
“Come home, Dante,” she whispered. “Please come home.”
