Chapter 27 - The Ghost of Castiglione
“They’ll eliminate her,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“It’s clean,” Julianna muttered, though she refused to meet my eyes. “A painless sedative. She won’t feel a thing. And in exchange, Arthur will let you and Mateo live. A modest estate in New Zealand. Five million dollars in an offshore trust. That was the bargain Dante was trying to secure for you before you came back to the tower.”
“A bargain bought with my daughter’s blood?”
Before Julianna could respond, a low, wet growl echoed from the railway ties behind her.
Dante was on his feet.
He didn't look human. His face was entirely smeared with coal dust and arterial blood, his right arm dangling uselessly at his side, held together only by raw sinew and torn muscle. But in his left hand, gripped in a reverse hold, was an eight-inch rusty railroad spike he had pulled from the rotting ties.
Julianna heard the shift in gravel and began to spin her weapon around. “Dante, don’t—!”
Dante didn’t shout. He didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward with all the remaining life in his veins, driving the rusty iron spike straight through the meat of Julianna’s right shoulder, pinning her against the brick support column with a sickening crunch of bone.
Julianna shrieked, the suppressed pistol tumbling from her grip into the mud.
Dante slammed his forehead into her nose, shattering cartilage, then pinned her throat with his forearm. “You… swore… she was… safe…” Dante rasped, his voice bubbling with bloody phlegm. “You swore… to me… Julianna!”
“Arthur… changed… the terms…” Julianna choked out, her boots kicking frantically against the ground. “The Syndicate… doesn't want… survivors…”
I didn't wait. I scooped Julianna’s fallen pistol from the mud, racking the slide with a practiced, instinctive motion I didn't know I possessed until this night.
I leveled the barrel directly between Julianna’s eyes.
“Where is the rendezvous?” I asked, my voice completely devoid of emotion.
Julianna looked past Dante’s bleeding shoulder and saw the gun in my hand. In that instant, she realized that the fragile, betrayed wife who had wept in a hospital room five hours ago no longer existed. What stood before her was a mother with nothing left to lose.
“The river intake,” Julianna whispered, tears mixing with the blood pouring from her broken nose. “Pier 44. The submarine tender is docking in ten minutes. If the asset isn’t delivered… Arthur executes the fail-safe.”
“What fail-safe?” Dante roared into her face.
May you like
“He remote-detonates the offshore trust accounts,” Julianna gasped. “And he releases the biological agent in the ventilation of your safe houses. Mateo’s biological mother… Lena’s sister in Miami… everyone Dante ever touched… they all die tonight.”
---
