Chapter 13 - The Glass Conservatory
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was an emerald oasis encased in Victorian glass, rising above the concrete noise of Crown Heights like a massive crystal greenhouse.
On a chilly Tuesday morning, the interior was humid, lush, and quiet. Water misted down from overhead pipes, coating tropical fern fronds and exotic orchids in fine, dewy beads.
Beatrice Costello walked slowly along the brick path of the Tropical Pavilion, wearing an olive-green quilted coat and her signature pearls, carrying a leather-bound sketchbook. For forty years, sketching botanical specimens was the only hobby that brought her peace; flowers didn't yell, they didn't shoot, and they didn't lie.
Twenty feet behind her, two plainclothes security guards—seasoned veterans named Sal and Tony—stood near the archway, scanning the morning joggers and elderly tourists with bored, professional vigilance.
Sal glanced down at his wrist comm. The green signal light suddenly flickered red.
“Tony,” Sal murmured, touching his earpiece. “You got static on the main channel?”
“Yeah,” Tony grunted, reaching inside his jacket. “Cell tower must be—"
A sharp, pneumatic pfft hissed from the dense bamboo grove to their left.
Tony stiffened. His eyes widened, his hands clawing at the base of his throat as a crimson blossom bloomed across his collar. He collapsed backward into the hydrangeas without making a sound.
Sal drew his Glock, but a second suppressed round caught him squarely between the shoulder blades. He hit the brick walkway hard, his radio skittering across the moss into the koi pond.
Beatrice didn't hear the shots.
She didn't hear the heavy scuff of tactical boots advancing down the brick corridor behind her.
She only felt the sudden, sharp drop in atmospheric pressure as a shadow fell across her sketchbook.
A manicured hand—nails painted blood-red, adorned with a massive diamond ring—reached out and slammed the leather book shut.
Beatrice looked up.
Standing above her was Elena Santoro. Thirty-five years old, wearing an ivory cashmere wrap coat and oversized designer sunglasses, her dark hair pulled back into a sleek, severe chignon.
Flanking her were four men in nondescript gray coveralls, carrying silenced submachine guns hidden beneath canvas toolbags.
Beatrice didn't scream. She didn't drop her charcoal pencil.
She looked at Elena’s face, reading the cold, calculating cruelty etched into the woman’s features, and slowly stood up to her full five-foot-two height.
Elena pulled down her sunglasses, her dark eyes glittering with cruel amusement. She spoke slowly, exaggerating her lip movements as if talking to an animal:
“Good morning, Auntie Beatrice. Time for a little family reunion across the Hudson.”
Beatrice didn't try to read her lips.
Instead, the old woman raised her hands, her fingers moving in sharp, deliberate contempt:
Your father was a pig who stole chickens in Calabria, and you dress like his favorite sow.
Elena frowned, irritation flashing across her flawless porcelain face. “Save the hand-waving, old woman. You’re coming with us, or my boys turn this greenhouse into a slaughterhouse.”
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One of the men reached out to grab Beatrice’s arm.
Before his fingers could touch the wool of her coat, a black reinforced GMC Yukon crashed straight through the glass exterior wall of the pavilion in a thunderous explosion of shattering panes, twisting iron framework, and flying tropical foliage.
