Chapter 3 - The Cold Steel on the Atlantic Boardwalk
Captain Miller made his move.
Desperation broke through his training. He brought the tactical shotgun up, aiming the heavy barrel straight at Marco’s chest, screaming:
“On the floor, Santoro! On the floor or I put four slugs through your ribs!”
He never touched the trigger.
Before Miller’s finger could tighten on the guard, the double doors of the private elevator vestibule behind him blew open with a deafening hydraulic hiss.
Dante—Marco’s chief of tactical security—stepped through the opening like a specter.
A heavy, suppressed automatic pistol cracked twice.
Pfft. Pfft.
The two lead slugs caught Captain Miller through both kneecaps with surgical, concussive precision.
CRACK.
The police captain shrieked, his legs folding beneath him like crushed cardboard as the shotgun flew from his hands, clattering across the marble floor into the pool of spilled cognac. He slammed face-first onto the tiles, groaning through a mouth full of shattered teeth and blood.
The four state troopers immediately dropped their shotguns, raising their gloved hands above their heads, falling to their knees against the far wall with their faces pressed flat to the wainscoting.
“Disarm them,” Marco commanded softly, not even looking at the bleeding officer.
Dante and four armed operators moved with mechanical speed, stripping the troopers of their sidearms, zip-tying their wrists, and dragging them out through the service vestibule.
Marco walked across the floor, his polished leather shoes crunching over the shards of broken decanter, stopping beside Captain Miller.
He reached down, picked up the federal arrest warrant from the puddle of liquor, and slowly tore the parchment into four clean strips.
He tossed the wet paper onto Miller’s back.
“Take Captain Miller down to the salt vaults beneath the boardwalk,” Marco said. “Let him sit in six inches of tidal brine until the United States Attorney General arrives by helicopter at midnight.”
Dante seized Miller by his tactical collar, dragging the groaning, shattered officer backward across the marble, leaving two dark crimson streaks behind him until the service doors hissed shut.
Marco turned his lethal, gray gaze back onto Veronica Rossi.
Veronica had collapsed onto her knees, her crimson velvet gown bunching in the spilled alcohol, her hands clasped before her chest in frantic, weeping supplication.
“Marco! I love you! You know I love you! I did it for us—so we wouldn't have to share the boardwalk with the state regulators!”
Marco stopped two feet in front of her.
He did not strike her. He did not yell.
He looked down at me where I stood wrapped in his heavy charcoal coat, clutching his lapels with trembling fingers.
“Clara,” Marco whispered.
“Yes, Mr. Santoro?” I answered, my voice shaking.
“Did she tell you she would turn off your mother’s oxygen?”
“Yes, sir,” I choked out, a fresh sob tearing through my bruised throat. “She said my mother would be on the pavement before midnight.”
Marco’s gaze locked back onto Veronica.
He reached down with his right hand.
With slow, measured, bone-crushing leverage, his fingers closed around the eight-carat emerald-cut diamond engagement ring on Veronica’s left hand.
He pulled.
The platinum band scraped dryly over her knuckle, tearing away from her skin.
Marco opened his palm and let the hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar ring drop into the puddle of spilt cognac at her knees.
Plink.
“You will never speak the name of an honest mother again, Veronica,” Marco said softly.
He looked at his second lieutenant, Frank.
“Take Miss Rossi down to the concrete vault behind the counting room. Place her in the exact cell where she broke the decanter over Clara’s face. Strip her jewels. Strip her silk. Let her sit on the bare stone until the federal marshals arrive with her capital murder indictments.”
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Veronica shrieked, her acrylic nails clawing frantically at the floorboards as two armed operators hauled her backward by the forearms, her screams echoing down the long gallery until the heavy steel doors clicked shut forever.
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