I Buried The Don And Took His Throne Chapter 13
The Bullet and the Coup
I’m about to close the distance when I catch it — a sound so small most people would miss it entirely.
The whistle of something moving fast through air. Something with intent behind it.
“Down —”
My hand’s already going for the KA-BAR on my hip. Dante’s faster.
He doesn’t even flinch. He turns, hooks his arm around my waist, and yanks me flat against his chest with his back to the door.
*Thup.*
The sound of a round hitting meat. Dead quiet.
His whole body jerks against mine. Something hot and wet soaks through my sleeve where his shoulder is.
The bourbon glass in his other hand hits the floor and shatters. Amber liquid spreading across the marble.
“Dante —”
I catch him as his knees go. His shirt at the shoulder is already black around the entry wound, and the blood coming out of it has a wrong color to it.
Wrong smell too. Sweet, almost.
The round was dipped.
“Easy… I got you…”
His face goes the color of paper in one breath. He forces his mouth into that same cocky smile and grips my wrist hard enough to bruise.
Outside, the compound explodes.
Orange light through the windows. The crack of gunfire. Boots. Shouting.
“Clean Dante! Kill his lapdog Sloane!”*
That’s Sergeant Bruno Ricci — Marco’s old deputy in the guard. I clock the voice before I clock the words.
I look down at Dante bleeding out against my chest, then at the poisoned round.
The capos I let live, the old money families sitting on the sidelines, they finally worked up the nerve.
They’re scared of my twenty thousand Crestwell soldiers, scared even more that Dante was about to sign half the East Coast operation over to me on paper.
I lower Dante down gentle onto the rug, tear a strip off his shirt and pack the wound as fast as I can, tie it off.
Then I stand up, picking my rifle off the wall rack.
The one that’s been through the Buffalo campaign with me. Every scratch on the stock is a Bratva I put in the ground.
“You want to die? Get in line.”
I kick the bedroom doors open. Cold night air comes at me, thick with the smell of gunsmoke and burnt gasoline.
Bruno Ricci’s got maybe forty guys stacked at the bottom of the marble steps. Compound guards in tactical gear. Every one of them holding.
“Sloane Crestwell! Dante’s dead upstairs, we both know it! Hand over the seal and the codes, we let you walk out alive!”
I don’t say a word.
The rifle comes up in one motion. First round takes Bruno through the throat.
He drops his gun. His hands go to his neck like he can hold it in. His eyes get very big and very confused.
“I put Dante Vitale on the throne. I can put every one of you clowns in the ground.”
I take Bruno’s head off with the second round.
I pick it up by the hair and hold it up.
“CRESTWELL CREW! Every man in the courtyard who’s part of this — no prisoners! Not one!”
My guys come out of the treeline.
That night, the marble in the Vitale compound gets hosed down three separate times and still won’t come clean.
The old-money capos who bankrolled the coup — I have them dragged out of their cellars and their panic rooms one at a time.
They’re crying before they hit the courtyard. Half of them are still in their pajamas.
I don’t let them talk. I just line them up in front of the main hall.
One in the head each. Bodies stacked like cordwood right where every made man on the East Coast can see them in the morning.
—
Next three days, Dante’s fever-dreaming upstairs. Touch and go. Doctor won’t commit.
I sit in his chair.
Bloody body armor still on. I don’t take it off.
Every capo in the Family files through that hall to swear the oath again. Personally. To me.
Genovese — bandaged, wheeled in by his grandson — tries to open his mouth about “family tradition” and “a woman running a sit-down.”
I just look at him.
He shuts up so fast his dentures click.
—
Dawn on the fourth day. Dante opens his eyes.
He looks small in that bed. Gray. Like a candle with two minutes of wick left.
I’m slumped in a chair by the window, half asleep, when a cold hand touches my cheek.
“Sloane… you stayed.” Voice like sandpaper.
I open my eyes. “Family’s clean. Coup’s over. I already put the ones behind it in the ground for you.”
I keep my voice flat. Business.
Dante pulls me down toward his chest. Not rough. Just insistent.
Up close, the madness behind his eyes has burned down into something quieter. Something that almost looks like giving up.
“Sloane. I told you. Half the Family. Yours.”
He fumbles under his pillow, then slides something into my palm.
Solid gold. Heavy. The Vitale signet — but paired with something new welded to it. The Old Don’s ring. The one that gives the wearer the right to make and unmake Dons. Sits above the Commission on paper.
“From tonight. You’re not just my Donna. You’re a Don of the Vitale. Equal seat. Equal vote. Every soldier on the East Coast answers to that ring.”
My fingers close around it. It’s heavier than it has any right to be.