Page 50 of The Bratva's Sextuplets
The conference room door explodes inward as the first wave of Federoff soldiers reaches the forty-third floor. They move with the same tactical precision I saw at the restaurant, coordinated and professional in ways that speak to extensive training, but they’re not dealing with terrified civilians this time. They’re dealing with men who’ve been killing for longer than most of them have been alive.
Viktor puts down two of them before they can fully enter the room, his shots precise and lethal. Dmitri flanks left, using the overturned conference table as cover while he picks off attackers like fish in a barrel.
Through the chaos, Claude rises from behind his desk, the.45 held in a two-handed grip that suggests military training I neverknew he possessed. He fires three shots in rapid succession, each one finding its target with accuracy that comes from years of practice.
“Papa, look out,” Zita screams from her position beneath the desk.
I turn just in time to see Claude stagger backward, a red stain spreading across the front of his white shirt. The bullet caught him center mass, tearing through lung tissue, causing damage that doesn’t heal.
“No!” Zita scrambles toward her father as he collapses behind the desk, his blood pooling on the expensive Persian rug. “No, no, no!”
I grab her around the waist, pulling her back behind the desk as more gunfire erupts from the doorway. “Stay down. Viktor, we need an exit route now!” Claude lies beside where we crouch, his breath gurgling.
“Working on it!” Viktor’s voice carries over the sound of automatic weapons fire. “The service elevator’s still operational, but we need to move fast.”
Claude is trying to speak, but blood bubbles from his mouth with each labored breath. Zita kneels beside him, keeping her hands pressed against the wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, hard to hear over the gunfire. “Sorry for the contract…bringing this into your life. Sorry…chose…my survival over your freedom.”
“Don’t.” Zita presses harder on his wound. “Don’t you dare apologize. Don’t you dare leave me.”
“Sorry…didn’t listen to Luciana and drove her away…”
“Stay with me, Papa.” Even as she speaks, the light fades from Claude’s eyes. The man who built a political empire, who thought he could control theBratvathrough marriage contracts and business arrangements, dies with his daughter’s tears on his face.
“Zita, we have to go,” I say gently, wrapping my arms around her shaking shoulders. “We have to go now.”
“I can’t leave him,” she whispers. “I can’t just leave him here.”
“You can and you will,” I say firmly, lifting her to her feet despite her struggles. “Staying here gets us both killed, and that doesn’t honor his memory.”
Viktor and Dmitri have cleared a path to the service elevator, their weapons trained on the approaches while we make our escape. I carry Zita rather than force her to walk, feeling the way her body shakes with grief and shock.
The ride down feels endless, forty-three floors of silent descent while Zita cries against my shoulder and my men watch the floor indicators with professional alertness. When the doors finally open in the parking garage, our backup team is waiting with additional vehicles and medical personnel.
“Boss,” one of my men reports as we reach the convoy. “We got most of them, but at least six escaped through the building’s underground tunnels.”
“Casualties on our side?”
“Two were wounded but none are dead. But…” He hesitates, glancing at Zita’s blood-soaked dress. “The news will bescrambling to report Claude Lo Duca’s death. This is going to cause ripples throughout the city.”
He’s right. Claude wasn’t just another businessman. He was a legitimate power broker who commanded respect from politicians and criminals alike. His murder will send shockwaves through Chicago’s political establishment and create a power vacuum that every ambitious operator will try to fill.
“Get us home,” I order, settling into the back seat with Zita still clinging to me, “and put out the word that anyone who worked with the Federoffs on this operation is a dead man.”
During the drive back to the mansion, Zita doesn’t speak. She sits pressed against my side with her face buried in my shoulder while tremors run through her body. I hold her close, one hand stroking her hair while the other rests on the gun beneath my jacket.
The woman in my arms is no longer the defiant bride who challenged my authority in conference rooms. The attack at the restaurant changed her, and now her father’s death has broken something inside her that might never fully heal. She’s seen too much violence, lost too many people, and has been forced to accept too many brutal realities in too short a time.
I’m worried about her, but she’s also proven herself stronger than either of us expected. She didn’t panic under fire, didn’t freeze when the shooting started, and didn’t break until after the immediate danger had passed. Whatever else this marriage has cost us both, it’s revealed that Zita possesses deep inner strength that can’t be taught or faked.
19
Zita
The black dress hangs in my closet, ready to put on for the funeral. It was chosen by one of Tigran’s assistants because I haven’t been able to make decisions about anything since watching my father die three days ago. I’ve been moving through the mansion like a ghost, staring at walls and seeing only blood if I’m not waking up screaming from dreams where Papa calls my name while bullets tear through his chest.
I can’t escape the sound of his voice in those final moments. “I’m sorry for the contract. Sorry for bringing this into your life.” His apology, whispered through lips that bubbled with his own blood, plays on repeat in my mind until I want to claw my own ears just to make it stop.
