Alessandro DeLuca

From what I’ve seen, they’re down three, with twelve men remaining.

“Where is that Colombo motherfucker?” I ask.

“Haven’t seen him,” Matteo, one of my soldiers, says.

We both slip off in opposite directions. No sooner than Matteo is out of sight, I hear him holler just after a gun blast goes off.

“Fuck!” I head back in his direction and see his feet sticking out from the living room. His killer is escaping, but I won’t let him.

“Cagna!”

The man turns around, and I shoot him in the head and chest. A bullet whizzes past me just as I take a step.

I dive into the living room and take refuge behind a sofa.

Shots ring all around the room, and the sofa is hit, but I’m not. Just as the gunfire starts again, I hear loud voices that I recognize as my brothers, cursing in Italian, and they’re letting out a blaze of gunfire.

“Angela’s Cuore!” I call out.

“Angela’s heart” is what my brothers called me when I was a kid. They all swore that I was her favorite besides my sister.

The gunfire ceases, and they run into the room.

“The fuck!” Antonio explodes.

I explain the situation before telling them, my body count. Once he gives me the total count from outside, I know that all of Colombo’s men are down except for one. Who that one is, I have no idea.

“Has anyone seen Mila?”

They all shake their heads, and I take off running.

The entire main floor is empty. Frederico’s words play back in my mind, and I quickly make my way to the basement.

I hear voices, and my heart seizes in my chest.

“…your daughter is next.”

“Fuck you! You thought I would be scared of you because your punk ass has a gun trained on me? If it wasn’t for my respect for Alessandro, I’d have placed a bullet between your eyes.”

“You should stop overestimating your skills. My boss is weak for you, but to me, you’re just another piece of pussy.”

“Too bad for you, that’s not true. If it were, I wouldn’t still be here now, would I?”

“The moment we realized who you were, I told him to kill you. You’re nothing but a target on his back. But he wouldn’t listen, told us to go easy on you. Just like he grew weak when he first brought your daughter here, he’s getting weak again. I won’t let that happen.”

“You called that bastard here?”

“Yeah, so that he could finish your ass off once and for all, and Alessandro wouldn’t have to worry about you anymore.”

“You’d better hope that he doesn’t kill Alessandro,” Mila threatens.

“No, you’d better hope that he doesn’t kill him. If he does, his father will see you as the reason why his son is no longer alive. And trust me when I say nothing will make Edoardo DeLuca happier than to watch you take your final breath.”

While he was spouting off bullshit, I was slowly opening the door. But there’s a creak that can’t be missed whenever the basement door opens.

Both heads turn in my direction when I step through the door.

“Boss!” The Enforcer says. “Caught her stealing from you. Told you this bitch can’t be trusted.”