Chapter 4 - The Courtyard Bloodbath
The front courtyard of the Gallo estate was bathed in the harsh, flashing yellow light of three idling armored transport vehicles.
Rain had begun to fall again, a light, freezing drizzle that slickened the cobblestones. Twenty men, dressed in tactical gear and carrying submachine guns, were spread out across the circular driveway, their weapons raised toward the grand entrance of the mansion.
Standing at the front of the formation was Salvatore Russo.
Salvatore was an old man, withered and cruel, leaning heavily on a gold-headed cane. Beside him stood his eldest son, Thomas, a bulky, crude man whose face was twisted in a mixture of rage and impatience.
Frankie and four Gallo guards stood on the broad marble steps leading up to the front doors, their handguns raised, hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.
“Call him out!” Salvatore barked, his voice raspy and dry like dead leaves dragging across concrete. “Tell Dominic to bring my daughter out right now! If she has a single scratch on her, I will tear this house down brick by brick!”
The heavy double doors of the mansion swung open.
Dominic stepped out onto the top terrace, the HK416 held casually at his hip. Rain immediately pasted his dark hair to his forehead, but his face was an unreadable mask of stone.
Beside him, stepping in perfect sync with his heavy boots, was Nora. She wore a dark leather trench coat over her clothes, her hands tucked casually into her pockets, completely unbothered by the twenty automatic weapons pointed directly at her chest.
Salvatore looked up at the couple, his eyes narrowing as he spotted Nora.
“Where is Vivian?” Thomas demanded, taking a step forward and raising his MP5. “Where is my sister, you bastard?”
“Your sister is in a holding cell in my basement,” Dominic answered, his deep voice carrying easily over the rumble of the idling truck engines. “She broke into my home. She threatened my wife. She destroyed my property.”
“Your wife?” Thomas sneered, laughing mockingly as he glanced at the men behind him. “That little painter? Vivian probably scared her so bad she wet herself! Hand Vivian over, Gallo, or we wipe this entire porch clean!”
Nora took a slow step forward, reaching the edge of the top marble step.
She looked down at Thomas Russo, her eyes cool and assessing. She didn't look at his gun. She looked at his stance—his heavy upper body, his wide, rigid footing, his complete lack of lateral mobility.
“You’re Thomas, correct?” Nora asked, her voice calm, almost polite. “The one who thought ten million dollars was too much to pay for breaking my grandmother’s porcelain?”
Thomas blinked, surprised by the absolute lack of fear in her tone. “Shut your mouth, woman, before I—”
“Dominic,” Nora said, speaking without turning her head. “The three men on the left flank have loose grip discipline. They will take two seconds to raise their sights. The driver in the middle van is holding a remote detonator for the gate barricade.”
Dominic’s eyes flicked to the targets she mentioned. She had analyzed the enemy formation in less than three seconds.
“Understood,” Dominic replied quietly.
Salvatore Russo sensed the sudden change in atmosphere. Old survival instincts, honed over forty years of mafia warfare, screamed at him that something was wrong.
“Thomas, shoot—” Salvatore began.
Before the order could leave the old man’s lips, Nora moved.
She pulled her right hand from her coat pocket and whipped her arm forward in a single, blinding blur.
The heavy steel letter opener flew through the rainy air, spinning twice before embedding itself four inches deep into the throat of the man holding the remote detonator. The driver let out a choked gasp, dropped the detonator, and collapsed backward into the open cab of the van.
At the exact same instant, Dominic raised his HK416 and fired a tight three-round burst.
The three men on the left flank dropped before they could even level their submachine guns.
“Fire!” Thomas screamed, panicked, raising his weapon.
Nora didn't retreat behind the marble pillars. She dropped low, sliding down the wet marble steps, using the momentum to sweep her leg out as she reached the bottom. The heavy iron boot of her heel slammed into Thomas Russo’s knee with the sound of snapping timber.
Thomas let out a blood-curdling shriek as his leg folded sideways. He fell forward, dropping his MP5.
Nora caught the falling submachine gun in mid-air, rolled across the wet cobblestones, brought the weapon up, and put two rounds into the chest of the gunman standing right behind him.
Dominic moved down the steps like a hammer, laying down devastating, controlled suppression fire that forced the remaining Russo enforcers to scatter behind their armored vans. Frankie and the Gallo guards joined in, opening fire from the high ground of the porch.
The courtyard turned into a deafening war zone of muzzle flashes, shattering glass, and screaming metal.
Nora didn't stay behind cover. She moved like a shadow between the vehicles, stepping inside the defensive perimeters of the Russo shooters. When a gunman tried to turn his weapon toward her, she grabbed his wrist, redirected the barrel into his partner’s stomach, snapped his arm back over her shoulder, and slammed his head into the steel frame of the truck.
She was a symphony of lethal efficiency—no wasted movement, no hesitation, no emotion.
Dominic, advancing through the center of the courtyard, watched out of the corner of his eye as his wife disarmed a three-hundred-pound enforcer, used his own weight to vault over a hood, and brought him down with a crushing strike to the larynx.
In less than ninety seconds, the gunfire stopped.
Sixteen Russo men lay dead or unconscious across the cobblestones. The rest had fled down the driveway into the darkness.
The only people left standing in the courtyard were Dominic, Nora, Frankie, and old Salvatore Russo, who was sitting on the wet ground, his gold-headed cane broken beside him, staring up at Nora with wide, horror-struck eyes.
Nora walked slowly over to the old man. Her leather coat was slick with rain and flecked with mud, but she wasn't winded. Her hair was completely wet, dripping water down her pale, calm face.
She leaned down, picked up Thomas’s dropped MP5, cleared the chamber with a crisp clack, and handed the weapon to Dominic.
May you like
Then she looked down at Salvatore.
“Your son was right about one thing, Mr. Russo,” Nora said softly, her voice smooth and unhurried. “I am a painter. But I also know how to erase mistakes.”
