Chapter 7 - Blood in the Rose Garden
The night air in the west courtyard was thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming midnight roses. Floodlights mounted along the estate’s perimeter fence had been systematically shot out, plunging the sprawling gardens into deep, ink-black shadows cut only by the pale beams of distant streetlamps.
Aleandro moved through the darkness like a ghost. He didn't take the main stone pathways; instead, he cut straight across the manicured boxwood hedges, his dark wool coat blending seamlessly with the night.
Near the old glass-paneled greenhouse, a dim light flickered.
Vincent Salvatore stood near the entrance, holding a sawed-off shotgun loosely in one hand while a scarred lieutenant held a weeping gardener by the collar, a pistol pressed firmly against the man's temple. Three other armed enforcers fanned out into the surrounding rose beds, scanning the darkness with tactical flashlights.
"Romano!" Vincent’s raspy voice echoed across the quiet courtyard, bouncing off the glass walls of the greenhouse. "I know you're out here! Come out and face me like a man, or I start blowing holes in your staff!"
Silence answered him. Only the crickets chirping in the brush.
"You think you can wipe out my docks and keep my property?" Vincent shouted, growing increasingly agitated as the darkness pressed in on him. "Marisol belongs to us! That child belongs to our syndicate's future ledgers! Show your face, Aleandro!"
"I'm right here, Vincent."
The voice came from directly behind the ruined marble fountain ten paces to Vincent's left.
The Salvatore enforcers spun around, sweeping their flashlights wildly across the lawn.
Vincent raised his shotgun, his hands shaking slightly as a tall, imposing figure stepped out from behind the stone pillar of the fountain, his hands empty and visible at his sides.
"You're getting old, Vincent," Aleandro said, his voice cutting through the humid night air with effortless calm. "Sneaking into a private estate like a rat in the dark. Is this what the great Salvatore family has been reduced to? Hostage-taking and property damage?"
"Shut your mouth!" Vincent snarled, leveling the twin barrels of the shotgun at Aleandro’s chest. "You ruined everything! You took my ports, you humiliated my men, and you harbored a fugitive!"
"She wasn't a fugitive," Aleandro stepped forward slowly, closing the distance between them. "She was an employee. And you crossed a line when you brought violence onto my property."
"Kill him!" Vincent screamed to his enforcers.
The three men flanking the garden beds raised their weapons.
They never got the chance to fire.
From the high balcony above the greenhouse, Marcus’s suppressed sniper rifle coughed twice—phut, phut—and two of the enforcers dropped instantly into the rose bushes without a sound. Simultaneously, from the shadows of the boxwood hedge, two Romano guards tackled the third enforcer, disarming him in a flurry of muffled grunts and cracking bone.
The scarred lieutenant holding the gardener panicked, his finger twitching toward the trigger.
Aleandro didn't hesitate. In one fluid motion, his hand flashed to his shoulder holster, pulled the Beretta, and fired a single round.
The bullet struck the lieutenant’s weapon hand, sending the pistol flying into the dirt with a sharp clatter. The terrified gardener broke away, scrambling frantically toward the safety of the main house.
Vincent Salvatore stared in sheer disbelief as his entire tactical advantage evaporated in less than six seconds. He looked down at his shotgun, tried to bring the barrel back up toward Aleandro, but before his finger could squeeze the trigger, Aleandro was already standing inches away from him.
A heavy, brutal punch from Aleandro’s right fist caught Vincent square in the jaw, sending the aging mob boss crashing backward onto the gravel path.
Aleandro stood over him, the barrel of his pistol pointed down at Vincent’s forehead, the moonlight glinting off the cold steel.
"Please..." Vincent wheezed, blood spilling from his split lip as he clawed weakly at the dirt. "Don't... don't kill me. We can make a deal—"
"There are no deals left, Vincent," Aleandro said quietly, his voice devoid of all human emotion. "You threatened my staff. You threatened my home. And you brought your war to a child."
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Aleandro didn't pull the trigger. He simply stepped down hard on Vincent’s wrist, hearing the bone snap crisply beneath his heel, before signaling Marcus, who jogged up with a pair of heavy-duty industrial zip-ties.
"Lock him in the wine cellar," Aleandro ordered coldly. "Call the federal prosecutor on the direct line. Tell him the Salvatore operation is officially closed, and surrender the remaining assets to state receivership by sunrise."
