My Mafia Madness 4

Chapter 2 - Why?

On the other side of the bolted door, Dante and his men were making quick work of Vincenzo’s remaining soldiers, one by one until the entire villa was finally cleared out and under the Reaper’s control.

Dante was clearly not in the mood to leave anyone loyal to Vincenzo alive as he rampaged through the entire place mimicking his infamous persona, The Reaper of New York.

After having his fiancé and child both abducted from his own home, and by a man who had been under his nose the entire time, Dante was understandably furious right now.

He was clearly taking all of his rage out on the poor henchmen who stood between him and his kidnapped woman.

Dante wanted nothing more than to beat the living s**t out of his rival Don using nothing but his bare hands.

But he wouldn’t beat the man to death.

Oh, no…

Instead, he would wrap his hands around Vincenzo’s throat and just keep squeezing, harder and harder and harder.

He needed to see the look in the bastard’s eyes as his windpipe was slowly crushed inwards by the force of Dante’s own two hands.

No one touched Alexa and lived to talk about it…

NO ONE!

“Capo, through here!”

Luca called out to Dante, snapping him out of his dark and sadistic daydream.

And as the Don lifted his head up to meet Luca’s gaze, he listened intently to what his trusted soldier had to say.

“Some of our men spotted Don Moroni and his men going in here only a few minutes ago.”

“What about Alexa?” Nicola questioned before Dante could, simultaneously coming to stand beside his Don.

Nodding his head in understanding, Luca replied right away.

“Yeah, she was with them. Apparently, the pricks had her in handcuffs but looked unharmed otherwise.”

Dante’s top lip curved upwards after hearing this, almost a silent snarl as he pictured her being cuffed by his enemies for a brief moment.

Right before he then refocused on the task at hand.

“They’ll be wanting a way out of here. It’s gotta be something we’re not yet seeing...”

Dante made his announcement as he contemplated what they already knew, before turning to face Nicola with his next question.

“Do we have any maps of the villa? Blueprints or schematics of any kind? Anything we can use to find out where they might be headed?”

Nodding his head, Nicola then took out his phone and began typing away as he spoke his response and simultaneously stepped in closer towards Dante.

“Sure do. Lanzo sent me these blueprints of when the villa was first built.”

The second-in-command reported this proudly, holding his phone out for Dante to get a good enough look.

“Luckily for us, the building’s fairly new. Only a couple of years old. These should be fairly accurate.”

As both Dante and Nicola stood together, using the phone to zoom in on the image, they located where they were standing right now on the blueprint and the areas around them.

But suddenly, Dante's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Something seemed seriously wrong about these blueprints.

For one thing there were several doors missing on the blueprints. Doors that were clearly standing there in front of them, mere metres away from where they were now.

And according to the blueprints, these doors shouldn’t even exist!

Something was definitely off about this. And Dante had a sixth sense for when things felt abnormal.

Call it a sixth sense.

He could always tell when something wasn’t quite right. And right now was one of those times.

This could mean only one thing...

Someone was attempting to deceive him.

Suddenly catching onto the mistake himself, Nicola frowned as he pointed to it with his large finger and spoke in outrage.

“Wait a minute, this doesn’t make any sense! The doors right there…”

He paused, glancing from his phone’s screen up towards the two doors in question that shouldn't exist.

“Either the blueprints here are inaccurate or there have been some serious acts of remodeling done here in the past year or so.” he added.

While Nicola tried to argue the point, Dante was already busy sniffing out the next traitor who would need to be dealt with.

“Who did you say sent you the blueprints, Nicola?” the Don queried.

Nicola looked taken aback after being asked this question, but he still answered it out of respect for his good friend and boss.

“Huh? Oh, uh… it was Lanzo. He emailed them to me about an hour ago.” he replied.

Dante remained silent, brooding to himself as Nicola went on.

“As soon as we narrowed down on the location, I requested he find me anything recent for us to get a layout of the building before we launched our attack. You know, as per our usual protocol.”

Still, Dante remained silent, and Nicola quickly got the feeling that his Don was deep in thought about something.

Something apparently quite serious judging by Dante’s expression.

“Where is Lanzo right now?” the Don finally spoke, asking his question as he looked to Nicola and still with his slight frown.

Nicola thought for a moment before he finally remembered. His eyebrows lifted as he answered.

“He and his team were told to take the rear entrance of the villa, remember? I spoke to him over the loudspeaker on our way in here. He and his team were meant to stop anyone who tried escaping out back…”

Suddenly Nicola paused, his words dying on his tongue as his eyes widened with realisation. Horror, of course, but also realisation.

“Oh… s**t…” he muttered to himself.

“We need eyes and ears on the rear entrance to the villa, right now Nicola!” Dante gave his command as he walked.

The Don had suddenly changed his trajectory from heading through the bolted door as initially planned, to the hallway opposite them.

One that lead them out towards the back of the massive villa.

As Dante moved so did everyone else behind him, including Nicola.

The large underboss spoke his disbelief while walking alongside his Don.

“This is crazy! You don’t seriously think that Lanzo is our mole, do you?” Nicola questioned, just to double check as he maintained long strides alongside Dante.

The large group continued making their way through countless rooms and hallways as they headed for the rear of the villa.

“It’s not like I’m happy about this, Nicola.” Dante pointed out, sternly.

“I know, I’m not saying that…” Nicola agreed with a nod.

“It’s just… well, he wouldn’t! I mean, what reason would he have to betray us like that, capo?”

Nicola was apparently still finding it difficult to make sense of their newest possible situation.

“It just makes no sense! I know the man, Dante. Lanzo’s young yeah, but he’s been nothing but totally loyal to us the entire time since we first brought him into the family. There’s no way it’s him!”

“Looks like we’re about to find out.”

Dante replied, right as they stepped out through the back patio doors and onto the large open terrace linked with the heated pool just up ahead.

They had almost reached the beginning of the scenic garden path neighbouring the giant underground pool as they continued marching forward.

A path that would lead them right down through a majestic walkway of looming trees and would finally end by the large iron gate at the back of the villa.

This was the only other way out of there, besides the main entrance at the front of the compound.

As Nicola marched alongside his Don, he continued wondering to himself in silence about Lanzo and his loyalty being questioned like this.

He just couldn’t make any sense of the man betraying them like this. There was no reason for him to do something like that.

Not when he knew what Dante did with traitors!

He would have to be a complete i***t to betray the Reaper.

Something just wasn’t adding up for Nicola.

And he intended on getting to the bottom of it, one way or another!

-

At that exact moment Vincenzo and the others finally emerged from the tunnels which had led them all the way along the length of the compound to the rear gate, exactly as they had planned.

And there before them sat several idling SUV’s waiting patiently for their arrival, just as Vincenzo had been promised there would be.

Smiling, Don Moroni proudly walked on towards the vehicles, feeling somewhat victorious of how things were going for him.

They had lured the Reaper and his men into their own tomb and now it was finally time to seal it up…

With the infamous Reaper and his men still inside!

As Vincenzo approached the first car the driver’s door opened, and a familiarly well-dressed man casually exited the vehicle before closing the driver side door with a clean ‘click’ sound behind him.

Vincenzo walked right up to him with a smile and with his arms open wide.

“You came through.” the Don joked with a chuckle as he embraced the driver for a quick welcoming hug.

“Don’t I always.” the driver replied as they parted, revealing his face and therefore his identity.

“After all, isn’t that what family's for?”

At that very moment, Alexa was being forcibly dragged along behind Vincenzo and happened to look up at who her new husband was warmly embracing.

Her eyes widened to the size of saucers and her mouth fell open in shock as soon as she saw and recoignised his face.

Gasping, she couldn’t speak… somehow, she’d forgotten for a moment how to even breathe!

As Alexa was pulled along towards him, the driver turned to look directly at her and his posture quickly straightened as if he were now feeling uncomfortable for some reason.

His eyes met hers with an expression of what almost appeared to be regret and sadness all mixed into one.

And in truth, he did feel truly terrible for what he was doing right now. For the betrayal he was committing against his Don and their Mafia Family.

But more importantly, that Alexa was getting mixed up in all of this. Especially since he had come to care about her like he would a friend.

“I’m sorry, Alexa.”

He spoke softly, from the bottom of his heart.

As Alexa then spoke her reply to him, her muttered, broken voice showed disbelief buried within her tone.

Her expression revealed a feeling of deep sadness towards the choice that he was making right now.

To betray them.

And of the consequences that there would be for him for making such a choice…

“Why, Lanzo?” she pleaded.

“Why?”