The sound of gunfire began to be heard outside, just as Sal’s security chief was alerting them to the ambush.  And although their wives were terrified by the prospect of more violence, Sal and Tommy didn’t have time for fear.  They had already prepared for the attack.  They just had to implement it sooner than expected.  They sprang into action.

“Everybody to their stations!” Sal yelled to Marcel as he began pulling out his hardware.  Marcel took off back outside, pulling out his own hardware.

Tommy immediately grabbed Grace and Gemma.

“Come with me,” Neeco said to Tommy, and he, along with his sidekick Bruce, hurried toward the back of the house.

Cassius tried to ease out of the house, but Sal shot toward his feet.  “You’re coming with me, asshole!” he shouted.  “You used us as your decoy to bring us here, now we’re using you!  Come on!”

Sal grabbed Cassius and flung him with him as he hurried toward the side exit.  The gun battle outside was raging with heavy fire, and Cassius was begging for protection.  “I need a weapon to fight back,” he said.

“I might be dumb,” said Sal, “but my ass ain’t that dumb!  Let’s go, prick!”

And Sal pushed Cassius out onto the battlefield, ahead of himself, as his human shield.

 

In the back of the house, Neeco opened the door that led down into the wine cellar, and Tommy looked at Grace.  She and Gemma were already heavily armed.  “Kill any motherfucker that opens this door,” he ordered.

“We will,” Grace replied, pulling out her weaponry.  Gemma did the same.

Tommy also reluctantly, but he knew necessarily, gave Neeco a gun.

Neeco, understanding the implication, looked Tommy in the eye.  “I’ll guard them with my life,” he said.

“I will too,” said Bruce, although he had no such weaponry to back it up.

But Tommy looked again at Grace.  It was obvious to her that he didn’t want to leave them.  “Go, Tommy,” Grace ordered.  “We’ll be okay.  You’ve got to help Sal!”

“Please, Tommy!” Gemma cried.  “Help Sal!”

Tommy knew he had no choice.  He also knew Grace and Gemma could kick butt if they had to.  He took off.

But when Grace and Gemma, and Neeco and Bruce were down in that dusty old cellar, Grace made certain to remain behind Neeco and Bruce, and to keep her eyes, and her gun, exclusively on them.  But as the battle raged around them, her heart, like Gemma’s heart, felt faint.

 

They felt concerned for good reason.  Louie Venetti and his men were overwhelming Sal and Tommy’s men.  By the time Sal made it outside, half of his men were down, and the other half were being chased, rather than chasing.  But the battle was around the front of the house.  Sal and Cassius were around the side.  It was a matter of time, Sal knew, before the fight would move his way.  He had to be prepared.

“Stay right where you are,” Sal said to Cassius, as they both were up against the side of the house.  “If you make one false move, I’ll kill you!  And you know I will!  When I tell you to announce yourself, you move then and only then.  You hear me?”

“Yes,” Cassius said nervously, nodding his head.  He was already bleeding from Sal’s beat down.  He knew what that man was capable of!  But all of this gunfire was new to Cassius.  He was mortified.  He wanted out.  But Sal was running that show.

Sal grabbed a post and hoisted himself up onto the roof of the small cottage house.  Once up top, he got onto his belly, to make himself as invisible as possible.

Just as he did, Tommy, understanding where the gunfire was coming from, came out from the side door as well.

When he saw Cassius, he fumed.  “What did you do to my brother?” he angrily asked Cassius.

“Up here!” Sal said in a whispered voice.

Tommy looked up on the housetop, and saw Sal.  Tommy nodded.  Sal was improvising, but he understood what he was doing.  They were going to play upstairs/downstairs on these motherfuckers.

Tommy grabbed Cassius and placed him in front of him, with his gun to Cassius’s head.  The fact that this man was their flesh and blood, their father’s father, didn’t mean shit to them.  A bad man was a bad man in their book.  They didn’t care what the kinship was.  After what Cassius did to Neeco.  After what Cassius tried to do to them and theirs, repeatedly, they held no sympathy for that monster.

Tommy looked up at Sal, and nodded.  And Sal, lying on his belly on the roof, began to crawl toward the front of the house, where the action was, while Tommy, with Cassius as his shield, headed that same way.

When they made it near the front, they could see the landscape.  Their men were still battling hard.  They were still in a shootout with Venetti’s men, and had taken out their share of the enemy, but they weren’t exactly winning the battle.  Venetti’s men had advanced from the street to the front yard.

Tommy held up three fingers.  Both brothers knew the importance of synchronization.  They had to begin shooting at the same time, in different directions, to avoid one of them getting overpowered.  Tommy closed one finger, then a second finger, and then, on the third count, they launched their counterattack.

Sal began shooting, with two guns blazing, from the rooftop.

Tommy began shooting, with two guns blazing and Cassius as his shield, from the side of the house.

They took out a succession of men before anybody realized where the new firepower was coming from, and their men were able to take the assist, and regain some position.

The fight raged on.

But when Cassius saw Venetti himself in the midst of the war, heading toward the front of the house, he broke away from Tommy and ran toward the front.

“It’s me, Louie!” he cried.  “They’re over here!”

But Venetti grabbed Cassius as soon as he saw him, and instead of helping him, made Cassius his own human shield.  Cassius was shocked.  Tommy and Sal weren’t in the least.

But it complicated matters.  Their already difficult shot at Venetti was now damn-near impossible.  Venetti was able to get off round after round, with Cassius as his shield, as he made his way toward what Sal realized was the front door.

When he neared the front door, Venetti shot Cassius in the head, and then pushed him away from him.

“He’s going in!” Sal cried to Tommy.  “He’s going in!”

And Tommy, knowing the women were inside of that house, ran back toward the side entrance, and hurried inside too.   Sal remained on the roof, dodging incoming, and continued the battle outside.     

By the time Tommy made his way inside the house, Venetti had made his way down the hall and straight to the wine cellar.  Those old village cottages were made alike.  They all had wine cellars in the exact same location.  Venetti knew his way around.

And he didn’t delay.  He didn’t bother to open the floor door that led to the cellar.  That would have given those inside the cellar an advantage.  He, instead, began firing through the centuries-old wood, and fired repeatedly, determined to kill Neeco and everybody else inside of the small hole, and then wait to ambush the brothers as they came to the rescue.

But he didn’t realize Tommy was already inside, and he ran down that hall firing as he ran.  He caught Venetti in the arm, and then the leg.  Venetti rolled onto the floor, firing at Tommy as he did.  But Tommy was too fast for him.  Tommy dropped to the floor too, but didn’t roll at all.  He shot Venetti, repeatedly, in every part of his body he could hit.  When he was finished, there was no doubt Venetti was dead.

But Tommy’s heart was hammering.  He knew Venetti had shot up the wine cellar as if it was his target practice.  He knew Grace and the others didn’t stand a chance.

He got up, and ran to the cellar door.

Sal had jumped down from the roof, and made his way into the house, too, after their men had taken control of the battle.  Sal ran in just as Tommy grabbed the handle and flung open the cellar door.  He wasn’t sure if his heart could take what he was about to see.

“They’re okay?” Sal asked, when he flung open the door.

But Tommy was dumbstruck.

“What is it?” Sal asked.  His heart was racing.  “Tommy, what is it?”

Sal ran to Tommy, and pushed him aside so that he could see for himself.  But he saw nothing.

“What the fuck?” Sal asked.

Then a bedroom door opened, causing Tommy and Sal to get on their backs pointing their guns in that direction.  But Grace and Gemma, along with Neeco and Bruce, came out.

“I realized the cellar was the first place they’d look,” Neeco said.

Tommy laid on his back.  His heart had stopped.  His heart had literally stopped when he thought Grace was in that cellar.

Sal ran to Gemma, and pulled her into his arms.

“What about outside?” Gemma asked.

“It’s over,” Sal said.  “We took them out.”

And it was only then did Gemma realized the sound of gunshots were no more.

Grace went to Tommy, who sat up on the floor.  “You okay?” she asked him.

“You’re okay,” Tommy managed to say.  “Which means I am, too.”

Grace got down on the floor with him, and held him.

Sal looked at Neeco.  “Thanks, man,” he said.

Bruce smiled.  Neeco smiled.  It was the least he could do.

And then, as if to add insult to injury, they finally heard the sound of police sirens.

Sal shook his head.  “Fucking cops,” he said.  “Where are they when you need them?”

And despite what they’d just endured, or maybe because of it, everybody managed to laugh.