Chapter 6 - The Blood on Elm Street
The trap was sprung on a rainy Tuesday evening in November.
Daisy was inside the shop, the old sewing machine humming beneath her fingers as she finished the lining of a charcoal wool coat for Lorenzo. Outside, Elm Street was quiet, the rain blurring the yellow streetlights into long, smeary lines on the pavement. Two of Lorenzo’s undercover operatives were stationed in a nondescript sedan across the street.
At 8:12 p.m., the front window of Sartoria Mitchell exploded.
A heavy brick wrapped in a burning rag crashed through the glass, landing directly on a rack of vintage silk dresses. Smoke and fire erupted instantly, filling the small shop with a choking, black haze.
Daisy screamed, dropping to the floor as automatic gunfire tore through the brick facade of the building. The bullets shredded the antique wood counters, shattered the mirrors, and sent chunks of plaster raining down on her head.
"Daisy!"
The front door was kicked off its hinges. Through the smoke, three men in heavy coats, carrying tactical shotguns, stepped into the shop. The lead shooter was a scarred lieutenant named Rico, one of Dominic Maroni’s most ruthless executioners.
"Find the girl!" Rico shouted, his gun raised. "The boss wants her alive until Bianco watches her bleed!"
Daisy crawled backward through the narrow space between the sewing tables, her fingers catching on a discarded pair of heavy upholstery shears—the long, eleven-inch steel blades her grandfather had used to cut through thick winter wool. Her heart was hammering so hard she could hear it in her ears, but the fear was quickly being replaced by a white-hot, generational rage.
They are destroying my shop, she thought. They are destroying my grandfather's life.
An operative’s body crashed through the side door—one of Lorenzo’s guards, bloodied and lifeless. Rico stepped over him, his boots clicking on the hardwood. He turned the corner into the back cutting room, his shotgun aimed directly at the space where Daisy was hiding.
"Found you, fat girl," Rico sneered, his ugly face twisting into a grin as he reached down to drag her out by her hair.
Daisy didn't scream. She didn't beg.
As his hand closed around her shoulder, she lunged forward with everything she had, driving the heavy steel upholstery shears directly into his thigh, twisting the blades with the full weight of her body.
Rico let out a deafening, high-pitched shriek of agony, dropping the shotgun as blood sprayed across the white linen fabric on the cutting table. He stumbled backward, clutching his leg, his eyes wide with shock that a simple tailor had just crippled him.
Before the other two shooters could react, the back alley door exploded inward.
Lorenzo Bianco stepped through the smoke. He didn't look like a businessman now. He looked like the god of death himself. In his right hand, a heavy-caliber pistol barked twice. The two remaining Maroni shooters dropped to the floor without a sound, their chests ruined by precision fire.
Lorenzo rushed to Daisy, dropping his weapon as he pulled her out from behind the counter. He took her in his arms, checking her face, her hands, her body for injuries. His hands were shaking—the great Lorenzo Bianco was completely terrified for the first time in his life.
"Are you hurt? Daisy, look at me, are you bleeding?" he roared over the sound of the crackling fire.
"I'm fine," she gasped, her hands covered in Rico’s blood as she pointed to the floor. "I... I think I ruined my grandfather's shears."
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Lorenzo looked at Rico, who was writhing in the mud and blood, then at the steel shears sticking out of his leg. A loud, booming laugh tore from Lorenzo’s throat—a wild, triumphant sound of absolute relief.
"You are magnificent, Daisy," he whispered, lifting her into his arms as Marco and the rest of the detail flooded the shop with fire extinguishers. "Let’s go home. The South Side belongs to us tonight, and tomorrow, we finish the Maroni family for good."
