Chapter 9 - The Cleansing of the Syndicate
|
The smell of cordite and copper hung heavy in the ruined ballroom as the rain continued to pour through the shattered skylights.
Luca stood at the top of the marble staircase, looking down at the four captured mercenaries kneeling in zip-ties on the wet floor.
Beside them stood Capo Vincent, one of our late father's oldest and most trusted lieutenants, his head bowed in absolute terror.
Dante had intercepted Vincent trying to slip through the estate's underground tunnels with a duffel bag full of bearer bonds.
"Look at me, Vincent," Luca commanded, his voice cold and cutting through the sound of dripping water.
Vincent slowly raised his sweaty, pale face, refusing to meet the deadly gaze of his boss.
"Luca, please, you have to understand," Vincent pleaded, his voice shaking like an autumn leaf.
"Arthur Sterling had photographs of my grandchildren in Boca Raton!"
"He said he would slaughter them if I didn't give his strike team the perimeter security codes tonight!"
Luca walked slowly down the marble steps, his polished dress shoes crunching over the crystal fragments from the earlier dinner.
"You've been taking money from the Sterlings for fifteen years, Vincent," Luca said quietly, pulling a ledger from Dante's hands.
"My father suspected you back in two thousand and ten, but he didn't have the stomach to kill an old friend."
"I don't suffer from my father's mercy."
Vincent began to weep openly, pressing his forehead against the damp floor in a pathetic display of supplication.
"Luca, I swear on my mother's grave, I didn't know Vanessa was going to poison you!" Vincent cried out, desperate to save his own skin.
I stopped halfway down the stairs, freezing at the mention of the word poison.
"What did you just say?" Luca asked, stopping dead in his tracks three feet from the kneeling traitor.
Vincent swallowed hard, realizing he had revealed the final, deadliest layer of the conspiracy.
"Vanessa... she had a slow-acting neurotoxin provided by her father's pharmaceutical labs," Vincent blabbed in a rush.
"She was putting microscopic drops into your nightly vintage port."
"In six months, your heart was supposed to fail in your sleep, making it look like natural cardiac arrest."
"Then Vanessa would inherit the Moretti territory under the marriage trust, and Arthur would absorb the docks without firing a shot!"
A cold shiver ran down my spine as I realized how close my brother had been to an invisible grave.
If Eleanor hadn't dropped those champagne glasses tonight, Luca would have been dead before the winter snow melted.
Eleanor stepped forward to the edge of the second-floor railing, looking down at the traitor with fierce, righteous dignity.
"The righteous always stumble upon the wicked, Vincent," Eleanor declared, her voice carrying the moral weight of a prophet.
"You traded your soul to a monster who burns children in their beds."
Luca did not shout; he did not lose his temper.
He simply turned to Dante and made a subtle, downward motion with his index finger.
"Strip Vincent of everything he owns," Luca ordered calmly.
"His houses, his accounts, his cars, his luxury watches—liquidate every single penny and transfer it to the Saint Jude Children's Trust."
"Then put him on a cargo ship to South America and ensure he never sets foot on North American soil again."
"If he ever returns to Chicago, feed him to the river."
Dante nodded with grim satisfaction and hauled the groaning traitor backward into the shadows of the corridor.
Luca then turned his attention to the captured mercenary leader kneeling beside the broken dining table.
"Now, soldier," Luca said, crouching down before the bruised and bloodied mercenary.
"You are going to give me the private access codes to Arthur Sterling's penthouse at the top of the Sterling Tower."
May you like
"And if you hesitate for even one second, I will let my sister decide what happens to your fingers."
The mercenary looked up at me, seeing the cold, unyielding resolve etched into my face, and he immediately began to speak.
