Chapter Eight
Normandy sat in the dining room of Sweeney Barese and watched as the asshole enjoyed his lobster and steak dinner. The plate in front of her had the same mouth-watering food, but the thought of sharing any type of meal with the man who had killed her family turned her stomach. She eyed the knife on her place setting then glanced at the goon standing guard behind Sweeney. If she believed for one minute that she could throw the knife and hit him in the chest before the hired bodyguard could protect him, she’d do it in a heartbeat, regardless of the consequence to herself. But she wouldn’t serve her family in the slightest if she ended up dead before the lying motherfucker sitting across from her managed to eat a bullet. She never wanted a gun so badly in her life.
“Eat up,” Sweeney said, pointing to her plate with his fork. “I had this specially flown in for our supper.”
“I’d rather stuff this lobster down your throat,” she said.
He smirked. “You say that now, but wait until you hear my proposal.”
Nausea churned in her gut. “I’d sooner stuff this lobster down my own throat rather than contemplate the thought of marrying into the Barese Borgata.”
“Normandy, it’s more than just marriage at stake. I’m talking about you and Damon forming a partnership. One day he’s going to take over my enterprises, so why not form that alliance now? You as the last DiLuca and Damon as the last Barese.”
“I’m the last DiLuca because you killed my family, you sick fuck! So no!” She pounded her fist on the table. “There won’t be any type of alliance between me and your son.”
He sighed. “I was afraid you’d be stubborn about this. Are you PMSing?”
“Oh, my God, are you fucking serious?” She shook her head in disbelief and picked up her knife. She noticed the bodyguard took a step closer to Sweeney. “I promise you, you will die. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but you will die. No matter how much you pay your thugs to watch over you, one day your guard will lower and when that happens I will happily watch you breathe your last. Do you understand me, Sweeney Barese?”
“I kept you alive for one reason, Normandy DiLuca, and that was to unite our families and make it easier for the other two capos to fall into line. Don’t make me regret my decision.”
She blinked. “You mentioned a traitor earlier. I don’t think I believe you.”
He grinned. “The seduction of money and power goes a long way in shadowing that word.”
Her heart thundered with apprehension.
“Who?” she demanded.
He put another bite of meat in his mouth and began to chew, taunting her with the name left unsaid. Normandy thought about the three capos who helped her father’s business, not believing any of them could betray her father. They were family.
Weren’t they?
“No,” she said, making up her mind. “I don’t believe you.”
He shrugged and swallowed his bite of food before taking a sip of his wine. “How else did I know your father and brothers wouldn’t be at the diner for breakfast?”
Her beliefs shattered. It was one thing to lose her family, but to know they had been betrayed by someone who supposedly was part of that family … it was hard to contemplate.
“Who?” she whispered.
“Harry Bianci. But don’t worry. I’ll soon take care of him. If he betrayed his own family then eventually he’d betray me, and I can’t have that.”
She wanted to cry, but knew tears wouldn’t solve anything or mean a damn thing to Sweeney, so she pushed the hurt aside. She’d deal with it later. Right now, she had a bigger fish to fry.
Just then, the lights went out. For a split second, confusion filled Normandy, but when Sweeney shouted, it jump-started her self-preservation. She fell off the dining room chair and scooted along the floor, heading in whatever direction it would get her the hell away from Sweeney.
“What the fuck?” Sweeney yelled. “What the hell happened? Lights, lights! Where’s the fucking lights!”
Normandy crawled along the floor out of the dining room. She tried to remember the layout of the house and turned in the direction where she thought the front door was located, but that was when all hell broke loose. Bullets zipped through the window, shattering the glass where some of it landed on her head. She covered her head with her arms and knew she was a sitting duck, so she scooted into the living room, hoping the furniture could help protect her from being a target.
****
“The last thing we need to do is start a war,” Slade said to Kix as they surveyed the large house. The back yard was concealed by a tall brick wall so they’d have to go through the front door. “Normandy is in there and I don’t want to do anything where she might be hurt.”
“I agree,” Kix said. He looked through night vision goggles. “I count two men posted at the door and four walking the perimeter.”
Slade looked at Mac. “Who’s inside?”
Mac studied his IR thermal imaging camera. “Four bodies standing. Two bodies sitting. Hardly an army, but their position raises concerns.”
“Okay,” Kix said. “We need to surround this house, but nobody start shooting. We need to take out those six men in the yard as quietly as possible.”
“Agreed,” Slade said.
As Kix organized the men, Slade couldn’t help but feel a huge dose of gratitude toward his Brothers. The White Death had become his salvation when he’d left the DiLuca family and he owed them more than they would ever know.
He waited on pins and needles, wanting to charge in and rescue Normandy, but he knew they had to play it smart. Her safety, as well as the safety of his Brothers, was the most important, but he had to admit, a huge part of him wanted to burst in there and beat the shit out of Sweeney Barese.
Kix gave orders through hand signals and the Brothers moved out, keeping to the shadows. Things were going as planned when something happened. A noise, or perhaps the wrong movement in the darkness, brought the attention of one of the bodyguards and before Slade could blink, the sound of a gun discharging changed everything.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded.
Hollering erupted from the yard as the bodyguards gelled together and started firing into the tree line, which, of course, made The White Death riders shoot back in self-defense. At the sound of breaking glass, Slade began running.
“No!” he yelled.
He’d only taken a few steps when he was tackled from behind. As he fell forward, a loud, buzzing sound whizzed by his ear, and he realized he’d just avoided being shot.
“Watch where you’re running,” Kix growled at him. “I don’t want to see what your brain looks like.”
Slade gave a grim nod and continued to the house. The guards went down like flies, moaning in pain as bullets flew. He hurried up to the front door with Kix right behind him and they took up a defensive position on each side of the door. They looked at one another, guns up and ready, mouthing off a one, two, three scenario then kicked open the door. As expected, the roar of answering gunfire met them, so Slade and Kix ducked back to the safety of the walls.
“Give it up, Sweeney!” Slade yelled into the house. “Your men can’t help you!”
As if to prove his point, the fighting ceased to a trickle until it stopped all together. All that came were the occasional sounds of pain-engulfed moans. The battle was over almost as soon as it had begun.
“That may be so, but I’ve got your precious wife, Michael. You fuck with me and she’s dead.”
“If you wanted her dead you already would’ve done the deed. I think you spared her for a reason. Why is that?”
“Imagine my surprise when you let it slip you two were married.”
“Oh,” Slade replied as the light bulb suddenly went off in his head. “You wanted to marry her yourself.”
“Hell, no! I’m an old man and my time is limited on this earth. I wanted her to be the anchor that gives my son everything.”
“You thought if she married Damon then the Barese family would get all of St. Louis. Distribution rights up and down the Mississippi.”
“It is a helluva market. Now back up from the door,” Sweeney ordered. “Normandy may not be my anchor anymore, but she can at least get me to safety.”
Kix nodded at him to comply, and they both backtracked from the door, guns level and ready to fire at the first opportune moment. Slade bit back his sigh of relief as he saw Normandy, unharmed and looking pissed off. Their gazes met and held and he hoped to god she could understand all he was thinking. Stop, drop, and roll away. Worked with fire and it would work with this asshole. And a second later, she got the chance when a sports car came to a sudden stop in the round driveway and Damon Barese bounded from the car. Normandy yanked her arm from Sweeney’s grip, but just as she was about to run toward Slade, Sweeney swung his gun around to aim on her.
“What the fuck?” Damon yelled. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
With a 9 millimeter in one hand and the other hand held up in an attempt to keep hold of the situation, everyone froze as Damon’s voice boomed.
“Now I don’t want to shoot anyone,” Damon said, “but what the holy fuck is going on? I thought we had a truce, Normandy.”
“We did, until your father killed mine,” she said bitterly. “Until he killed my brothers.”
Damon stared at her for a long moment, slowly shaking his head, before looking toward his father. “You’re wrong. We respect your family. Dad would never… Dad?”
He faltered as Sweeney Barese lifted his chin.
“No,” Damon said. His shaking head became more firm. “Dad, what did you do?”
“I saw an opportunity to expand our business into Missouri,” Sweeney replied coldly. “Who wouldn’t jump on the chance to further our business dealings?”
“But … but … we had a peace agreement,” Damon said, a bit incredulous. “Grandfather created it.”
“My father was a bleeding heart,” Sweeney spat. His upper lip curled in disdain. “He was too weak of heart to take the entire Midwest for our own!”
“God damn it, Dad! What the fuck did you do?”
“Don’t you be a bleeding heart, too!” Sweeney shouted at his son. “You need to kill that motherfucker Slade and take Normandy as your wife, then we’ll have an empire none will dare attack.”
The look Damon shot at Normandy made the hair on the back of Slade’s neck rise. Normandy shook her head, silently telling him that she would never go along quietly with Sweeney Barese’s grandiose plans for the future. Slade saw the other man coming to a decision, saw confusion sweep through his eyes before sadness settled in them. He braced himself, getting ready to launch himself into his wife to get her out of harm’s way.
“I’m so sorry, Normandy,” Damon whispered.
Just as Slade took a step toward her, Damon abruptly turned the barrel of the gun on his father and shot. Surprise was the last look on Sweeney Barese’s face as he crumpled to the ground. He was dead before he hit the floor. Kix hurried forward to disarm Damon, yanking the gun away and securing it by putting the safety on and sliding it into his pocket. Knowing it was now over, Slade rushed to Normandy as she rushed toward him and they met halfway, wrapping their arms around one another. Slade buried his face in the crook of her neck and breathed in her scent as his heart thundered with relief that she was safe.
“I think I’ve aged ten years in these last twenty-four hours,” he whispered.
She gave an amused little snort. “Let’s not do this again. Yeah?”
“Agreed.”
He pulled back and saw Kix talking with Damon, who stared at his father’s body. Slade couldn’t even imagine what was going through his head. His own father had been a shit of a man, but even he’d have drawn the line at killing the old bastard.
“Did any of your men die?” Damon asked.
“No,” Kix replied.
“Good.” Damon rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ, what did I do?”
“You saved my life,” Normandy murmured.
Damon wiped his eyes. “I had no choice. He took your father’s life, and I believe in an eye for an eye.”
“Do you want us to take care of the body?” Kix asked.
Damon shook his head. “We’ve got a doctor who’ll sign off on a natural death. I’d rather no one knew what the fuck he did or what happened here.”
Kix nodded. “I understand. We’ll be out of your jurisdiction by morning.”
“Yeah,” Damon said, clearly distracted. He looked over at Normandy. “Can we meet tomorrow?”
Slade tensed. “Why?”
“Just thought we could come to a new peace agreement between the Barese and the DiLuca Borgatas.”
Normandy glanced up at Slade.
“It’s up to you,” he said. “But I’ll be by your side.”
She looked back at Damon. “All right.”
“We’ll call you in the morning,” Kix said.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Normandy said softly as Slade took her hand to leave the carnage behind.
“Yeah,” Damon said sadly. “And I’m sorry about yours.”