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“Not without us you’re not,” Damion spat. “What the fuck happened?” They were running for the door to his father’s office and Finn and Damion were having a full conversation, going over the plan blow by blow and what had gone wrong. If he wasn’t running for his life, he would probably find the whole scene funny.
“Can we table the conversation until after this is over?” Bruno asked. He tried the office door, and it was locked. “Stand back,” he ordered. He waited for Finn and Damion to clear the hallway before he shot the handle off the door and pushed it open. As soon as it opened, a reign of gunfire had the three of them ducking for cover and he wasn’t sure how they were going to get past the guard with the semi-automatic.
“Unless we take him out, there is no way in,” Damion shouted over the noise.
“I’ve got this,” Finn shouted. He pulled a grenade from his pocket and pulled the pin.
“Wait,” Bruno shouted, “you set that thing off and we’re all dead.”
“It’s a flash grenade,” Finn yelled back, tossing it down the corridor into his father’s office. “Take cover.” The three of them ducked back into the stairwell and waited for the loud bang of the grenade.
“Let’s move,” Damion ordered. They ran out into the hallway to find two of his father’s guards slumped against the wall. They were holding their heads and shouting.
“We’ll take care of them,” Finn offered, “you just go find your father.” Bruno kept going, running into his father’s office, and hopping over the dead body of one of the guards. He was the one with the machine gun, but Bruno didn’t recognize him. He had heard that his father hired some new men after Bruno and Gino went into hiding. The rumors must have been true because he didn’t know the three guards that his father had in his office.
Bruno found his father sitting in the corner of the room as if quietly waiting for him to join him. “Father,” Bruno said, trying to see through the lingering smoke.
“You finally grew a set of balls and decided to turn yourself in,” his father said.
Bruno barked out his laugh. His father wouldn’t admit defeat even if everyone around him had. “Your guards are all dead. I’m thinking that you are the one who should turn yourself in.” Bruno kept his gun trained on his father. The idea of having to shoot his old man wasn’t one he relished, but he’d do it, nonetheless.
“You know that I will never turn myself in,” his father said.
“I figured, but I thought that I’d give you the chance to save yourself. If not for your own sake, then for Mother’s.” Bruno knew that his mother might not ever forgive him for what he was about to do, but he had no choice.
“She’ll get over my death,” his father assured. “But you never will. You’re making a mistake by joining the other families in an alliance. You can never have the peace that you’re looking for. It’s impossible. Our families have been at war for years and there will be no changing that.”
“You’re wrong,” Bruno insisted. “We used to have peace before you got greedy. You wanted too much, Father, and that’s what has led to all this bloodshed. There is time to do the right thing still.” He could see from the stubborn smirk on his father’s face that he wasn’t going to budge. His mind was made up and there would be no changing it.
“I don’t think that you have the balls to kill me, son,” his father taunted. He hated to tell his father that he was about to lose that bet, but he’d figure that out sooner or later. “You’ve never been good with deciding who lives and who dies. That’s why you won’t make a good leader.”
“You’re wrong,” Bruno said.
“Damn straight, he’s wrong,” Finn said. He and Damion stood on either side of him, their guns pointed at his father. “But lucky for Bruno, he won’t have to make that decision.”
“We’re going to make it for him,” Damion said. He pulled his gun from the holster and fired one round into his father’s chest. “That’s for all the syndicate members whose lives you ruined, and for all the lives you took. You might have decided who got to live or die, but that didn’t make you a god. In fact, I’m pretty sure that you’re chances of meeting God are pretty slim to none. Rest in hell, Mr. Gluttony,” Damion shouted as the old man took his last gargled, ragged breath.
“Thanks for having my back,” Bruno almost whispered. “He was right, I don’t know that I would have been able to kill my own father, even with as much as I wanted to.”
“That’s why you’ll be a great leader for your syndicate,” Finn insisted. “You have a conscious where your old man never did. You’re going to do just fine as the head of the Gluttony Syndicate, and you’ll make one hell of an ally.”
“Agreed,” Damion said, “and, sorry that I killed your father, but it had to be done.”
“I know that,” Bruno said, “and no hard feelings.”
“Good, now let’s get the fuck out of here. Do you have a cleaning crew who can come in and clean this shit up? Your new office is a mess.”
“Yeah, but this won’t be my office. I’m going to have this building demolished, first thing Monday. I plan on making my headquarters a little bit less medieval torture in theme.”
“Yeah, I think that might be for the best,” Finn said. “This place gives me the creeps. Now, about that beer that you owe us,” he reminded.
Bruno chuckled and put his gun in its holster. “I knew that you wouldn’t forget about that,” he teased.
“Well, it’s not every day that the head of the Gluttony family offers to buy us a beer,” Damion said. They walked out of the old office building and Bruno didn’t bother to look back at what was left. That building represented his past, and he had so much to look forward to in his future.
“Do you guys’ mind if I ask for a rain check?” he asked. “I’d like to get down to the hospital and check on Gino.”
“No problem,” Finn said, “but, we’re going to hold you to it.”
