I dive behind the fountain as a bullet chips the concrete to the right of my head, and I hear them cursing and calling for backup in Italian. Getting on my stomach, I use the fountain for cover and crawl along the side until they come into view, firing on where I’d been a moment ago. Two quick shots, and one of the men drops.
The other swears and fires at me to cover himself as he throws the door open and heads inside, on his way to raise the alarm, I assume.
If I wanted secrecy, I wouldn’t have hurdled into the place at 50mph.
A bullet grazes my leg from behind, and I curse and whip around to fire on the gate guard, who takes the shot to the gut and drops his weapon, doubling over on the ground. Stowing my weapons, I race over to him and tackle him to his back, resting my knee on his neck.
“Keys, stronzo,” I growl as he groans in pain. “Get me into this place.”
“You’re a dead man, Lomaglio,” he gurgles with a pained grin on his face. With a grunt, I slam his head back into the ground and put him out.
I have to move fast. In a matter of seconds, this courtyard will become a killzone with as many Cleaners as there are windows in the manor popping out to gun me down. No time to strategize, I have to make an entrance. If I have any chance at surviving this, it’ll be in a lightning fast rampage that’s all bravado and luck. It’s way too late for stopping and planning.
I race around to the side of the building, and I can hear scuffling and shouting inside from behind the walls. The walls aren’t exactly made for climbing, but there’s enough stonework between the windows that it will have to do. A tall cypress tree grows by the wall as part of a row, and I leap up onto it and start climbing.
By the time I near the second story of the building, I can hear the sounds of footsteps in the courtyard. Someone must have figured out I’m not in sight, and they’re sending men to look for me. I can’t be exposed any longer than I have to be.
I look to the nearest window. It has a balconette, just what I need to get a grip. But the window is shut, of course. Wrapping my legs around the tree, I slip my jacket off and toss it to the balconette. It hangs there, and clad in nothing more on my torso than a white shirt stained with blood, I leap after it.
I catch the railing and haul myself up, getting a sturdy foothold. I take my jacket and ball it up over my fist like a glove, and without hesitating, I throw my fist into the window by the handle inside.
The panel smashes to pieces, and I let my glass-ridden jacket fall to the ground as I unlock the window and push it open, climbing inside. I’ve made a lot of noise, and I need to get to cover fast.
“East wing guest room, move!” I hear from down the hall, and the sound of feet approaching tells me I have only a few seconds. It’s a lavish room, decorated in true Sicilian style with lavish rugs and exposed stonework. I don’t bother gathering my jacket. I make my way to the door and press myself against the wall to the side and wait, drawing my knife.
I let the first man rush in unharmed, but when the second follows, I turn my knife downward and drive it into the base of his skull. Before his comrade can so much as turn around, I shove the dying man’s body into him, throwing him off-balance.
The two of them topple to the ground, and I dive onto the living man and put the knife to his throat, a finger to my lips as he glares up at me with pure hatred in his eyes.
“Will you be as stubborn as the corpses outside?” I ask in a hushed tone.
“I don’t talk to dead men,” he hisses back. “That’s what you and your whole family are.”
“To hell with the Costa,” I say, “this is personal business. Tell me where Serena is and I’ll let you get out of here.”
“Probably moaning through Lorenzo’s co-” he tries to say, but I silence him with my blade, and I cover his mouth as he convulses under me.
I stand to my feet over the two dead men. The soldiers in this compound aren’t going to fess up—these must be the men who made the Cleaners a force to be feared. Still, there aren’t as many as I would have expected.
That’s a shame. If they had more men, the odds might be more even. That’s cockiness speaking, but it’s all I have left at this point. That, my knives and some bullets.
I stow my knife and draw a gun out, holding it at the ready as I move out into the hallway.
The manor is lavish, but I can tell it’s new. There’s no soul to this place yet, and everything looks too clean to be authentic. Whether the Abruzzis are new or old money doesn’t matter to me, but the place reeks of lavish spending and bad taste.
I make my way down a long hallway toward what I can see to be a set of marble stairs. I’m about halfway down when I hear the sounds of footsteps coming up fast. Cursing, I kick open the door to a room on the side and take cover.
As soon as I do, a terrified woman inside screams and covers her mouth as she staggers back. I don’t bother trying to hush her—my kicking down the door already let them know I’m here. Judging by how she’s dressed, I’d guess she’s a cleaning lady. I gesture for her to get down, and she nods, moving further back into the room and crouching down.
I use the doorframe to stabilize my arm as I wait for the men to come into sight. Three of them come up the stairway, and I wait for all three to show themselves before I start firing. My first shot catches one in the heart, and as he falls back down the stairs with a cry of pain, the others move for cover in side-rooms of their own. I get a shot into one of their shoulders before they dig themselves in safely, but when they start shooting from cover, I know this is a useless battle. I’ll just waste bullets while reinforcements have time to get here.
My jaw set, I’m thinking of my options when I hear a voice from behind me.
“Sir!” the domestic whispers loudly. I fire off a couple shots down the hall before I glance back at her. She’s standing beside a panel in the wall that I would have missed, but she finds a subtle handle on it and pulls it aside, revealing a small staircase leading up and down. My eyes widen.
“This is a laundry room,” she hisses, “stairs go up and down to other servants’ quarters. Take it up, these men won’t find you.”
Hardly able to believe my eyes, I fire off another shot down the hall before I move over and look down on her. “Why are you helping me?”
“These men are monsters,” she says, “whatever you’re here for, it can’t be worse than them. I’ll take the stairs down, they won’t catch me.”
I give a curt nod. “Lorenzo’s room, where is it?”
“Three floors up from here,” she says, “it won’t take you to his room, but close.”
I glance at the door, then nod. “Thank you,” I grunt before squeezing my body into the narrow opening. True to her word, while shots ring out in the hallway, she heads down the stairs and closes the panel behind us. I draw my knife and start my climb.