Chapter 11 - THE COURTYARD OF RECKONING
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Back at the Moretti estate, the heavy grandfather clock in the foyer chimed seven-thirty.
I stood beside Teresa near the second-story parlor window, watching the rain beat against the glass.
Below us, in the dimly lit courtyard, the basement cellar door creaked open slowly.
Vanessa crept out into the freezing mist, clutching her ruined designer gown tightly around her shivering frame.
She looked frantically toward the iron front gates, expecting to see her father’s rescue convoy charging up the winding driveway.
Instead, the massive cast-iron gates stood wide open, welcoming nothing but the whistling winter wind.
Suddenly, brilliant halogen floodlights snapped on around the perimeter of the courtyard, bathing the entire stone driveway in blinding white light.
Vanessa shrieked, shielding her eyes with her bruised hands.
A single black limousine rolled smoothly through the gates, stopping twenty feet from where she stood frozen like a cornered animal.
The rear door opened, and Luca Moretti stepped out onto the cobblestones.
He was followed by Federal Agent Miller and two armed marshals in tactical windbreakers.
Behind them, a second vehicle opened, and a defeated, handcuffed Salvatore Bellini was pushed out onto the gravel by federal officers.
Vanessa gasped, staggering backward until her spine hit the stone balustrade of the fountain.
“Daddy?” she whimpered, her voice cracking with childlike disbelief.
Salvatore couldn't even look his daughter in the eye; his head hung low, his tailored coat soaked with highway slush and rain.
Luca walked slowly toward the center of the courtyard, his hands resting casually inside the pockets of his overcoat.
“Looking for your rescue party, Vanessa?” Luca asked, his voice cutting through the hum of the floodlights.
Vanessa rushed toward her father, but an armed marshal blocked her path with an outstretched arm.
“Daddy, tell him!” Vanessa screamed, hysteria taking complete control of her senses.
“Call the Commission! Call the Mayor! Tell them who we are!”
Salvatore let out a broken, pathetic sob, shaking his head against the cold wind.
“There is no Commission left for us, Vanessa,” Salvatore whispered, his voice trembling with despair.
“Luca handed over forty years of our offshore banking records to Prosecutor Miller an hour ago.”
“Every bribe, every shell company, every murder contract we ever signed... he gave it all to the Department of Justice.”
Agent Miller stepped forward, pulling a thick stack of federal arrest warrants from his leather briefcase.
“Salvatore Bellini, Vanessa Bellini-Moretti, you are both under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, wire fraud, racketeering, and the unlawful embezzlement of pension funds.”
Vanessa’s eyes bulged with terrified fury as she lunged toward Luca, her fingernails clawing at the empty air.
“You turned rat, Luca!” she shrieked, saliva flying from her lips.
“The Moretti family is dead! You broke the code!”
Luca stepped forward until he was mere inches from her contorted face.
“The code of my father was built on honor and protecting those who served us,” Luca said, his voice as heavy and unyielding as an iron anvil.
“You poisoned an old man in his sleep and stole bread from seventy-year-old women.”
“You are not gangsters, Vanessa.”
“You are common thieves.”
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“And in this city, thieves do not get empires.”
“They get iron bars.”
