Chapter 116: Silvio Berlusconi
The port of Genoa. A salty sea breeze rolled in off the water, but did nothing to cut through the suffocating air of menace that hung over the docks.
"Ivy, relax! We can step in whenever we need to. Why drag Leo into this?"
Serafina hooked her arm through Leo's, shooting a dismissive look at the men on the dock.
As far as she was concerned, the Mafia were just amateurs playing games she'd already mastered.
Ivy flicked her tongue across her lips. "Ha, fair point!"
Leo gave both women a light smack on the backside. "Both of you, settle down. I don't like women getting in front of me."
With that, he led the two of them off the ship.
"Marco, with me." The moment Leo's feet touched Italian soil, he glanced back at the captain behind him.
Marco blinked, instinctively reaching for the gun at his hip, then quickened his pace to catch up. "Leo, I know you can handle yourself, but we're in Italy. The Berlusconi family doesn't have limits when they start swinging. Let me bring a few men I trust. Even if it costs me my life, I'll get you out of there."
Marco figured Leo wanted him along because he knew the port layout — that he could be useful in a brawl.
Leo didn't explain. He just bit down on his cigar and strode down the gangway.
"Just you. That's enough."
He exhaled a slow breath of smoke, his eyes unreadable. "After tonight, no one in this port will dare look you in the eye again."
Marco had stayed loyal to him through everything — even at the cost of crossing his own boss's family. Leo hadn't forgotten that.
If Marco was going to keep living and working in Italy, then tonight wasn't just about killing. Leo was going to build Marco a reputation in the port of Genoa — something so solid that no one would ever dare touch it.
On the dock, a wall of suited men parted like a dark tide to clear a path.
"Sir, our master Silvio Berlusconi is already waiting for you."
Giuseppe gave a slight bow — polite on the surface, cold underneath. He gestured toward a long black armored car parked behind the crowd. "Please, get in. Some matters are better settled somewhere quiet."
Several hundred black-clad bodyguards stepped forward in unison, hands sliding inside their jackets. The message was clear.
Leo glanced at the car, let out a short, contemptuous laugh, and blew a stream of cigar smoke directly into Giuseppe's face. "I don't like climbing into other people's cages. Lead the way. We'll walk."
Giuseppe's expression went rigid for a second. A flash of anger crossed his eyes, then disappeared. "As you wish. Lead the way."
---
Twenty minutes later.
An abandoned cold-storage warehouse at the edge of the port.
The place was deserted. Rusted steel frames loomed in the dying light, giving the whole building a grim, hollow feeling — the kind of place where things happened that no one was meant to find out about.
The heavy iron door groaned open, releasing a wave of rot and decay.
"That's him! Father! That's the bastard who broke my arm!"
A sharp, ugly cry tore through the empty warehouse.
Andre stood there with his right arm wrapped in a thick cast and sling, his face pale as a corpse, staring at Leo with the kind of hatred that wanted to tear him apart piece by piece.
In front of him sat a man in a plush leather armchair that looked completely out of place in the ruined factory.
He was a heavyset old man in a dark red velvet suit, holding a cane topped with an enormous ruby.
This was the head of the Berlusconi family — Silvio Berlusconi.
Silvio ignored his son's outburst. His gaze settled on Leo for a moment, then slid — slow and shameless, like a viper — across Ivy, Serafina, and Olivia.
Ivy's red coat blazed like fire. Serafina's leather jacket was tight and wild. Olivia's combat gear was sharp and cold.
The three of them standing there together turned the dead, rotting warehouse into something else entirely.
"Andre wasn't wrong," Silvio said. He licked his lips, not bothering to hide the hunger in his eyes. "Haven't seen quality like this in Italy for a long time. Not even at Milan Fashion Week."
He looked back at Leo, his tone carrying the easy arrogance of a man who decided who lived and who didn't. "You've got nerve, young man. Laying hands on my son. You're the first one in Genoa who's tried."
Leo stood with one hand in his pocket, his expression as cold and still as carved ice. "So?"
Silvio let out a short laugh and brought his cane down hard against the floor with a dull crack. "I'll give you a chance to walk out of here alive. Out of respect for your taste."
"Get on your knees. Apologize to my son. Break both your own hands." He paused. "Then leave these three women here. One month in my service. If I'm in a good mood after that, I might let them send you home in one piece."
Marco's hands were shaking. He started to step forward — and Leo stopped him with one raised hand.
Leo exhaled a slow breath of smoke and swept his gaze around the warehouse, taking in the hundreds of gunmen positioned in the shadows. His voice was flat. "You really think you've got enough people here to take my women?"
The warehouse erupted in laughter.
Andre cackled through the pain, his voice cracking. "You think this is still your ship? This is Genoa. This is the Berlusconi family's private killing floor. Who do you think you are? God?"
Silvio shook his head slowly, contempt written all over his face. He clapped his hands once, lightly.
"Since you don't know what it means to be afraid, let me show you what real power looks like."
The sound of footsteps rose from the shadows at the far end of the warehouse.
Heavy. Slow. Each one landing like something massive.
A figure stepped out of the dark.
Seven feet tall. Over three hundred pounds. Bare-chested, skin a sickly bronze, every muscle coiled and knotted like twisted rock. A grotesque skull tattoo spread across his chest.
"This is Carlo. They call him the Bulldozer."
Andre's face was lit up with vicious excitement. "He was the most feared executioner in all of Sicily. The men he killed — he ground their bones to powder. In a minute, pal, I'm going to watch him take your women right in front of you."
Carlo walked up to Leo and stopped. He was like a wall blocking out the light. He looked down at Leo with pure contempt, then jabbed one finger — thick as a carrot — toward Leo's face and spoke in broken English.
"Little monkey. I pull your guts out. Slow. Let you watch."
The bodyguards around them started shouting:
"Carlo, don't kill him yet — cripple him first!"
"A soft little thing like that? Carlo could sit on him, and that'd be the end of it!"
"Those three women look like fun — hurry up and finish this, Carlo, we want our share!"
Marco closed his eyes. The thing he regretted most right now was not stopping Leo back on the ship.
But Leo, surrounded by all of it — the jeering, the threats, the laughter — calmly reached up and undid the buttons of his black coat. He handed it back to Olivia.
He rolled his wrists slowly, then looked up at the mountain of a man in front of him. A cold, brutal smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"I hope your bones are harder than your mouth."
---
Carlo let out a sound like an animal and swung his right arm — thicker than most men's thighs — in a wide, savage arc. The air screamed around it. It came down toward Leo's head like a wrecking ball.
A direct hit would have done more than kill a man. It would have turned his skull to rubble.
Every face in the room broke into a cruel grin. They could already picture it.
Leo didn't move his feet.
He raised his left hand — the one without the cigar — slowly, almost lazily.
---
A sound like two slabs of steel colliding exploded through the warehouse.
The shockwave kicked up dust from the floor and sent it rolling outward in every direction.
Silence.
Every smirk in the room froze solid. Eyes went wide.
Carlo's fist — the one that could punch through a steel plate — had stopped dead in midair, caught in Leo's open hand.
Leo's palm looked almost small against that massive fist. But it held like a hydraulic vice. Carlo couldn't push it forward another inch.