I forced Luciano towards the sound of the voice, steering him around the dead body on the floor.
“It’s Luciano.” His voice sounded tense, even to me – but hopefully the guy in the room would chalk it up to the lights being out.
“Oh – what’re you doing here, sir?” the man called out in confusion. “And what happened to Edoardo?”
I smirked in the darkness.
Edoardo DEAD, motherfucker.
I steered Luciano into a living room with several couches. The foot soldier doing the talking was standing in front of one of them, like he’d been sitting just a minute ago when the lights went out.
“I don’t – ” Luciano started to answer –
Pop pop!
The foot soldier fell backwards onto the couch.
This time his body didn’t make much noise, but he gurgled out a bloody death rattle before he went completely silent.
In the distance, I heard twothuds.
Ciro and Romeo must’ve bagged a couple moreCosa Nostraassholes.
I guided Luciano through the house.
Along the way, we passed plenty of windows. Through the bulletproof glass, I could see the glow of the guardhouse and security lights along the 15-foot wall.
I specifically had Tiratore wait to shut offallthe breakers so we wouldn’t alert all the guardsoutside. I wanted to deal with the onesinsidethe house first.
We finally reached the main foyer.
On my left, I could see the glass-and-iron doors that led out to the stone courtyard.
On my right, there was an identical set of doors that led out to the garden courtyard.
On either side of the garden doors were two huge staircases that zigzagged up to the floors above us.
Moonlight gleamed through the stone courtyard’s glass doors and illuminated the dead bodies on the tile floor.
Even Luciano could see well enough to avoid the puddles of blood.
I forced him up the stairs.
Somewhere above us, I heard muffledpops– dozens of them.
Ciro and Romeo must have found the sleeping foot soldiers.
Once all those silenced shots erupted, the rest of the foot soldiers on duty finally got wise. I could hear them shouting on the floors above us –
And they started using their phone flashlights to find their way.
Of course, that just made it easier to spot them. Those bright lights meant I could see them coming from a hundred feet away.
Plus, I had a secret weapon.
“Tell them it’s you,” I whispered.
“Don’t shoot – it’s Luciano!” he cried out.
