Fate of Retribution

Dante Vokolov

The breaching charges detonated with a concussive roar that punched through my chest and rattled my teeth.

The reinforced steel doors of the DiMarco headquarters lobby blew inward, twisting off their hinges in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. Smoke billowed through the entrance as automatic gunfire erupted from the security stations flanking the marble reception desk.

I moved through the breach before the echo faded.

My Kimber .45 barked twice, dropping the first guard before he could adjust his aim. Konstantin swept left, his Glock spitting controlled bursts that shattered the bulletproof glass partition and silenced the second shooter.

Blood misted the air. The acrid stench of cordite burned my nostrils.

Konstantin’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears. “Clear left.”

I signaled my two lieutenants forward. They moved like shadows, weapons raised, boots crunching over broken glass and spent brass. The rest of my strike team poured through the entrance, fanning out with the precision of a blade sliding between ribs.

This was three years in the making. Three years since Marcello DiMarco stole forty-five million from my accounts and put a contract on my family.

Three years since I buried my wife and children in pieces.

The memory of Milena’s funeral flashed behind my eyes—two small caskets beside hers, white lilies wilting in the rain. My son Leo had been four. Sofia barely two.

I shoved the image down and focused on the stairwell door ahead.

A DiMarco soldier burst through, spraying wild rounds that chipped the marble columns. I dropped to one knee, sighted center mass, and squeezed the trigger. He crumpled backward, his weapon clattering down the stairs.

“Sixty floors,” I said, my voice flat and cold. “Marcello’s in his office at the top. No one gets out.”

Konstantin nodded, his scarred face impassive.

We moved up.

The building was a fortress—Marcello had concentrated eighty percent of his crew here, over a thousand men packed into a corporate tower like rats in a cage. He thought the numbers would protect him.

He was wrong.

I had dozens of teams hit each floor with brutal efficiency. Flashbangs disoriented the defenders. Suppressing fire pinned them in their positions. We cleared rooms with stacked entries and overlapping fields of fire, leaving bodies in our wake.

I felt nothing. No satisfaction. No remorse.

Just the cold, mechanical rhythm of vengeance.

By the time we reached the fortieth floor, resistance had collapsed into scattered pockets of desperate men. They died defending a coward who would have sold them out the moment it saved his own skin.

The same way he tried to sell out my family.

My jaw clenched so hard my molars ached.

We breached the sixtieth floor at 0347 hours. The executive suite was a sprawling expanse of dark wood paneling, leather furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Marcello’s remaining guards made their last stand in the corridor outside his office.

It lasted ninety seconds.

I kicked open the office door, my weapon raised.

Marcello DiMarco knelt in the center of the room, his hands zip-tied behind his back. Two of my men flanked him, their rifles trained on his skull. He looked smaller than I remembered—a pathetic, sweating man in a thousand-dollar suit, his carefully groomed hair disheveled and his eyes wide with animal fear.

Good, I wanted him afraid.

I crossed the room in three strides and pressed the barrel of my Kimber against his temple. His breath came in short, panicked gasps. The sharp stink of his cologne mixed with the copper tang of blood from the corridor.

“Any last words, Don DiMarco?”

His mouth worked, lips trembling. Sweat dripped down his jowls. “Wait—wait, Dante, please. We can make a deal. I can make this right.”

I said nothing. My finger rested on the trigger, steady and sure. “My daughter...”

The words tumbled out in a desperate rush. “Vittoria. She’s upstairs—62nd floor. Beautiful girl, smart, trained in the business. You can have her. A wife, a hostage, whatever you want. She’s worth more than the money I took. She’s—”

Disgust coiled in my gut like a serpent.

This piece of filth was bartering his own daughter’s life. Offering her up like livestock to save his worthless hide.

I thought of Milena. Of the way she used to laugh when Leo tried to steal bites of her breakfast. Of Sofia’s tiny hand wrapped around my finger.

Marcello DiMarco had stolen that from me. And now he wanted to trade his daughter like a commodity.

“You’re worse than I thought.”

I pulled the trigger.

The gunshot cracked through the office. Marcello’s head snapped back, and his body crumpled to the floor in a boneless heap. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the polished hardwood in a dark, viscous stain.

Blood spatter rained on my tactical gloves as silence settled over the room. I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry like ash.

I holstered my weapon and turned to Konstantin. He stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

He pulled out his tablet with heat signatures and the technical readout of this building. “The building’s secure, sir. Minimal casualties on our side. DiMarco’s crew is finished except a couple hundred or so of his soldiers who surrendered voluntarily.”

I nodded, my pulse still thrumming with adrenaline.

It was done.

Marcello DiMarco was dead. The man who murdered my family had paid the price.

But the hollow ache in my chest didn’t fade.

Konstantin shifted his weight, glancing at the tablet in his hand.

“There’s one more thing. The 62nd floor—Marcello’s penthouse. It’s soundproofed, separate elevator access. Biometric locks.”

I frowned.

“And?”

“It’s occupied. Like he said, his daughter’s still inside.”

The words hung in the air between us.

Vittoria DiMarco. Or Vittoria Wicks, according to the intelligence reports. Marcello’s only child, kept locked away at the top of his empire.

The daughter he’d just tried to sell to save his own life.

My hand drifted to the Kimber at my hip. The metal was still warm from the last shot.

Marcello’s bloodline ended with him. That was the rule. That was justice.

An eye for an eye. A family for a family.

I crossed to the private elevator at the back of the office. The biometric scanner blinked red, but Konstantin had already bypassed the system. The doors slid open with a soft chime, revealing a sleek, mirrored interior.

I stepped inside and racked the slide of my Kimber .45, chambering a fresh round.

Time to finish what I started.