Chương 13
The manual gate release was below them, inaccessible. Federal agents were outside fortified walls. Sal was somewhere in the service tunnels. Camille stood frozen. Hale had become useless with fear.
No one was coming in time.
Massimo could remain seated and hope for rescue.
For six months, remaining seated had become indistinguishable from waiting to die.
He looked at the curtains.
Eight feet.
Dr. Park’s voice sounded in his memory.
You are not standing unless absolutely necessary.
Massimo locked the wheelchair brakes.
Dean noticed the movement.
“What are you doing?”
Massimo pushed down with both arms.
His right foot found the floor.
The brace held his knee.
His left leg trembled violently.
He rose.
Not gracefully. Not fully. His back bent. One hand clung to the desk. The other reached for the chair. Pain tore through both legs, bright and chaotic.
But he stood.
The room stopped breathing.
Michael lowered his gun.
Camille covered her mouth.
Hale began to cry.
Dean stared as if the dead had spoken.
Massimo took one step.
His left knee buckled. He caught the desk and nearly pulled the documents onto the floor.
Dean’s shock turned to fury.
“You lying bastard.”
Massimo reached beneath the curtains and found the walker.
Dean lunged.
The syringe flashed in his hand.
Massimo swung the walker sideways. It struck Dean’s forearm. The syringe flew across the carpet.
Michael raised his gun, uncertain where to point it.
The second guard aimed at Massimo.
Camille seized the brass fireplace poker and struck the guard’s wrist. The shot went into the ceiling. Plaster rained onto the bookshelves.
Massimo tried to move again.
His right foot obeyed.
His left dragged.
Dean drove a shoulder into his chest.
Both men fell.
The floor struck Massimo’s back. Air vanished from his lungs. Dean landed over him, one hand closing around his throat.
“You should have stayed broken,” Dean said.
Massimo hit him once in the jaw.
The punch lacked strength.
Dean tightened his grip.
Across the room, Hale crawled toward the syringe. Michael wrestled with the other guard. Camille stood holding the fireplace poker, unable to choose where to swing.
Massimo’s vision narrowed.
Dean’s face blurred above him.
Twelve years.
Blood in the back seat.
Laughter in Atlantic City.
Dean beside his father’s coffin.
Dean’s hand on his wheelchair.
Love did not erase betrayal.
Betrayal did not erase love.
That was the cruelty.
Massimo reached blindly and found the gray stone in his jacket pocket—the one Nina said looked like a potato. He had carried it through the ceremony without knowing why.
He drove it into Dean’s temple.
Dean recoiled.
Massimo rolled sideways, coughing.
The syringe lay near the edge of the carpet.
Dean saw it.
So did Massimo.
They reached together.
Massimo’s fingers closed around the barrel first.
Dean stopped.
For one suspended second, Massimo held the needle against the soft skin beneath Dean’s jaw.
He could press.
No court. No testimony. No risk that Dean would escape, bargain, or order another killing from prison.
Dean looked at him.
“You know what happens if you let me live.”
Massimo’s hand shook.
“Yes.”
“You lose everything.”
“Yes.”
Dean gave a bloodied smile.
“You were never good at losing.”
Massimo looked toward Camille, Michael, Hale, and the terrified attorneys. He thought of Carla signing settlement papers beside a fruit basket. Sal’s son finding a photograph beneath his windshield. Nina crying on the staircase because a powerful man had decided cruelty was strategically necessary.
The empire had taught Massimo that mercy meant weakness.
It had never taught him what strength cost.
He threw the syringe into the fire.
The vial cracked with a sharp pop.
Dean’s face changed.
Massimo reached for the microphone in his collar.
“Sal,” he rasped. “Open the gates.”
Dean struck him.
Before he could strike again, the library wall opened behind the north bookcase.
Sal emerged carrying a shotgun.
He looked at Massimo on the floor, Dean above him, Camille holding a fireplace poker, Hale crawling beneath a chair, and the two guards wrestling near the door.
“I leave for seven minutes,” Sal said.
Dean reached for his gun.
Sal fired into the ceiling.
The blast shook dust from the chandelier.
“Try it,” Sal said.
Dean froze.
Sal crossed the room, kicked the gun away, and pressed the barrel against Dean’s chest.
“The gates,” Massimo said.
Sal’s eyes remained on Dean.
“I opened them.”
Sirens rose beyond the rain.
Not one or two.
Many.
Dean listened.
For the first time since Massimo had known him, fear stripped every performance from his face.
“You called them,” he said.
Massimo pulled himself upright against the desk.
“Yes.”
“The FBI?”
“Yes.”
“They will take you too.”
“I know.”
Dean laughed. It sounded almost relieved.
“All this because a child washed your feet.”
“No.”
Massimo looked at the unsigned healthcare proxy on the desk.
“Because she asked why they were sleeping.”
Federal agents entered the estate through the east and west gates. Some guests screamed. Others immediately began calling lawyers. Several men attempted to leave through the kitchen and discovered tactical officers waiting near the service drive.
Brooks entered the library wearing body armor over a dark suit.
She took in the broken ceiling, the fire, the syringe glass, and Massimo half seated against the desk.
“I specifically said not to turn this into a performance.”
“It was less organized than it appears.”
Dr. Park pushed past two agents with a medical bag.
“I told you not to stand.”
Massimo looked at her.
“It became necessary.”
She knelt beside him and began checking his pupils.
Agents handcuffed Dean.
He did not resist until they moved him past Massimo.
Then he stopped.
“You think they’ll protect her?” he asked.
Massimo knew he meant Nina.
“They cannot protect anyone forever. Neither can you.”
Sal moved toward him.
Brooks raised one hand.
Dean smiled at Massimo.
“When they put you in a cell, remember who kept you alive long enough to enter it.”
May you like
Massimo held his gaze.
“When they put you in yours, remember a three-year-old saw what I did not.”
