Chapter 4: The Fall of the Underboss
The echo of the high-caliber sniper round was still ringing violently off the imported Italian marble walls when the reality of the situation finally shattered Rick Dawson’s delusion of control.
The remaining three security men, seasoned corporate killers in their own right, didn’t hesitate for a single second. They instantly dropped their suppressed pistols flat onto the floorboards. They were paid handsomely to protect a cartel money launderer, but they weren’t paid to fight an invisible, elite military sniper who could thread a needle through double-paned glass in the middle of a torrential downpour.
Evelyn Dawson finally found her voice, letting out a piercing, hysterical scream. She clamped her hands tightly over her ears, sinking to her knees amidst the ruined shards of the Milan vase she had just used as an excuse to torture a teenager.
Nicholas Costello didn’t flinch. He didn’t even cast a glance at the dead man bleeding out on the rug. His dark, predatory eyes remained fixed solely on Rick, radiating a glacial, terrifying calm.
“You thought ADX Florence was a cage, Rick?” Nicholas asked, his gravelly voice cutting through the suffocating silence. “You thought throwing me in a concrete box in Colorado meant I was deaf, dumb, and blind to my own city?”
Rick swallowed hard, taking a trembling step backward, his velvet smoking jacket suddenly looking entirely ridiculous. He looked like a frightened child playing dress-up in a dead king’s clothes.
“This is madness, Nicholas,” Rick stammered, his voice losing all of its previous bravado. “You come into my house and shoot my men? The local police chief, Arthur Pendleton, is on my payroll. I have him on speed dial. They’ll have a dozen cruisers here in five minutes.”
“Chief Pendleton,” Nicholas stated flatly, rolling up the cuffs of his ruined suit jacket, “was indicted exactly forty-five minutes ago. Wire fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Right now, he’s sitting in a windowless interrogation room at the Dirksen Federal Building downtown, crying for his lawyer and singing like a canary about your entire operation.”
Rick’s jaw went completely slack. The blood drained entirely from his face. “What? No… that’s impossible. I paid him off.”
“Did you honestly believe the US Attorney’s office reduced my sentence and opened the gates of a supermax just because I had good behavior?” Nicholas took a slow, deliberate step forward, forcing Rick to retreat until his back hit the cold mahogany wall paneling.
“Thomas Higgins, the federal prosecutor you thought I paid off—he wasn’t interested in putting away a retired, aging mob boss, Rick. He was interested in the Valle Norte cartel. He was interested in the two hundred million dollars of Colombian cocaine money you’ve been sloppily laundering through my casinos while I was locked away. You got greedy.”
Mia, still huddled in terror against the far wall, looked up, her breath hitching in her throat. The blinding terror in her pale green eyes was slowly being replaced by a fragile, devastating confusion. The father she had believed sold her to a monster was standing in front of her, effortlessly tearing down the empire that had enslaved her.
She looked up at the young guard standing fiercely over her. “Liam,” she whispered, her bloody hand trembling as she reached for his boot.
Liam didn’t holster his weapon. He kept his body positioned squarely between Mia and the Dawsons, his eyes scanning the room for any sudden movements, but he reached back with his left hand, gently and firmly wrapping his fingers around hers.
“It’s okay, Mia,” Liam murmured, his hardened tactical voice softening only for her. “I told you I’d get you out. I just didn’t know your old man was going to beat me to the punch.”
Nicholas’s gaze shifted from the terrified Rick Dawson to the young guard assessing him, and then finally down to his daughter. The sight of her in that degrading uniform, her hair chopped away and her spirit battered, threatened to break his iron composure. The ruthless mafia don evaporated, leaving behind only a broken, desperate father.
He knelt slowly, ignoring the sharp porcelain glass crunching beneath his knees until he was exactly eye-level with her.
“Bambina,” Nicholas said, his voice cracking with heavy emotion. “Listen to me and listen carefully. I never touched your trust fund. I would never do that to you. The fifty million dollars at the First National Bank of Chicago—it’s still there, completely untouched.”
Mia stared at him, her lips parting.
“Rick forged the bank statements he showed you,” Nicholas explained, a tear cutting through the dust on his weathered face. “He forged my signature with a crooked notary. He wanted you broken, isolated, and destroyed so you would have no choice but to marry his sociopathic son, granting him legal control over your entire inheritance the second you turned twenty-five. I would burn this entire world to ash before I ever let someone sell you, Mia.”
A heavy, primal sob finally tore out of Mia’s throat.
The dam broke. Four years of psychological torture, physical abuse, and the soul-crushing belief that she had been discarded by the only parent she had left all came rushing out at once. She lunged forward, throwing her thin arms around Nicholas’s neck, burying her face into his charcoal shoulder.
Nicholas held her tight, fiercely wrapping his arms around her fragile frame. He closed his eyes as hot tears he hadn’t shed in decades tracked down his scarred cheeks. He kissed the top of her hacked hair over and over.
“I’ve got you,” Nicholas whispered, rocking her back and forth. “Dad is here. I swear to God, it’s over.”
