Page 167 of Marcello

While Cesare cleared the ground floor, Ciro and I went up to the second floor and shot every bodyguard we found.

Some of them were sleeping in their beds.

I hated doing it, but I comforted myself with the fact that I was killing other murderers.

And after seven years in hell, my conscience was toast. I knew I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

No more than any other night, anyway.

Ciro and I met Cesare and Luciano in the foyer.

Once we told him all the threats upstairs were dead, Cesare texted Tiratore, who shut off the power to the complex’s exterior lights –

Which made the Cosa Nostra soldiers outside start panicking.

When they came knocking at the front door, we made Luciano call out and put them at ease.

Four Cosa Nostra foot soldiers walked into the darkened foyer –

And died before they knew what was happening.

Tiratore used his sniper rifle to kill the remaining guards outside…

And Cesare, Luciano, Ciro, and I made our way up the stairs.

The plan was Cesare and Ciro would handle Don Amato and his wife, and I would go get the daughter. In fact, I had insisted on it.

Lucrezia might have promised we wouldn’t kill Laura Amato, but I didn’t trust the other guys not to rape her – especially if they thought they could use it to make Don Amato talk.

My soul might’ve already been damned from everything else I’d done the last seven years, but I wasn’t about to allow that to happen.

“Where’s your sister?” I whispered to Luciano as we climbed the stairs.

“You swore you wouldn’t do anything to her,” he hissed.

“Which is why I’m going after her and not Ciro.”

Ciro chuckled. He knew that I knew he would rape the girl, and he found it funny.

After this was all over, maybe I would kill him.

Luciano glared at me in the darkness, but he finally relented. “…down the hallway… third door on the left.”

I nodded and hurried off.

Cesare, Luciano, and Ciro headed in the opposite direction towards the far end of the hall.

As I counted off the doors, I noticed the doorknobs were solid brass. The lock mechanism was basically a skeleton keyhole in a metal plate.

Great.

I figured I was going to have to kick it in, which I didn’t want to do.

Laura Amato was already going to be traumatized tonight, and I didn’t want to add to it by giving her a fucking heart attack.

But when I got to the third door on the left, the metal keyhole plate was entirely missing.

Instead, there was a gaping hole in the wood. There wasn’t a lock on the door at all.