Chapter 5 - The Ambush on Bleecker Street
Mario’s Gelateria was a quaint, family-owned Italian parlor with bright red awnings and outdoor seating located on a quiet corner of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.
The afternoon sun beamed down on the sidewalk as Aleandro, Sophia, and Marco stepped out of the SUV. Sophia was immediately distracted by a bubble machine set up by a nearby toy store, clapping her hands in delight.
"Stay right here by the table," Aleandro told Marco, pointing to a small wrought-iron table near the entrance. "I’ll get the strawberry ice cream."
"I’ll accompany you inside, Boss," Marco offered quickly, stepping close. "Protocol."
"Stay outside and watch her," Aleandro ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Aleandro stepped inside the air-conditioned parlor.
Outside, Sophia was jumping up and down trying to catch a floating bubble, while Marco stood a few feet away, his hand casually resting inside his jacket where his concealed firearm rested.
At that exact moment, two black sedan cars rounded the corner of Bleecker Street at high speed. They screeched to a halt right in front of the gelateria.
The doors flew open. Four masked men wearing heavy dark jackets leaped out, brandishing silenced automatic submachine guns.
Pedestrians screamed, scattering in every direction, diving behind parked cars and shop doorways.
"Ambush!" someone yelled.
Marco didn't draw his weapon to defend Sophia. Instead, Marco took two steps backward, drawing his pistol, aiming not at the approaching gunmen, but directly toward the doorway of the gelateria where Aleandro was walking out with a waffle cone of strawberry ice cream.
The first gunman opened fire, spraying bullets toward the outdoor seating area. Glass shattered from the gelateria’s front windows.
Sophia screamed, freezing in terror as a bullet chipped the sidewalk two feet from her pink sneakers.
In a fraction of a second, Aleandro dropped the ice cream cone. The instinct of a apex predator and a desperate father collided. He didn't run for cover; he lunged forward, throwing his massive body over Sophia just as a volley of bullets slammed into the brick wall behind them.
Inside the doorway, Aleandro drew his concealed 9mm pistol with terrifying speed.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three shots fired in rapid succession. Three masked gunmen dropped instantly to the pavement, neutralized with clinical, lethal precision.
The fourth gunman raised his rifle, aiming directly at Aleandro’s exposed back.
Marco raised his own pistol, smiling darkly as he lined up the sights on Aleandro’s spine. Goodbye, Boss, Marco thought, squeezing his finger on the trigger.
CRACK.
A shot rang out—not from Marco’s gun.
A bullet ripped through Marco’s right shoulder, spinning him around and knocking his weapon clattering across the pavement. Marco screamed in agony, clutching his bleeding arm.
From behind a parked delivery truck across the street, Maria Alvarez—holding a heavy steel chef’s knife she had grabbed from the estate’s catering van, which she had secretly driven to follow them just to make sure her daughter was safe—lowered a smoking pistol she had fished out of Aleandro’s hidden vehicle compartment fifty miles back.
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The fourth gunman, realizing the ambush had failed and his cover was blown, jumped back into the sedan, and the vehicle peeled rubber, vanishing down the avenue.
Silence descended on Bleecker Street, broken only by the wailing of distant police sirens and Sophia’s terrified sobs.
