Chapter 2 - The Audit of Vengeance
By noon, the Manhattan rain had turned into a relentless downpour, drumming against the reinforced glass of the Moretti estate’s subterranean holding rooms.
Arthur Vance, a slick, middle-aged employment contractor who wore too much cologne and cheap gold rings, sat sweating profusely in a metal chair. His hands were bound loosely behind his back with plastic zip ties—not because he was dangerous, but because Alessandro preferred his guests to remain seated when they spoke.
Standing around him in the dimly lit concrete room were Marco Ricci and three other senior enforcers. They didn't scream. They didn't have to. The terrifying reputation of Moretti Holdings hung in the air like ozone before a lightning strike.
The heavy steel door swung open.
Alessandro walked in, rolling up his shirt cuffs to his forearms. He didn't look like a captain of industry right now; he looked like an executioner stepping onto the scaffold. In his left hand, he held a manila folder containing Sofia Delgado’s employment records.
“Mr. Moretti—please!” Arthur blurted out, his voice cracking with sheer terror as he strained against the chair. “I swear to God, I didn’t know! I didn’t know Sofia had a kid! If I knew she was sick, I would’ve given her paid leave! It’s all a misunderstanding—!”
Alessandro stopped two feet in front of him. He didn’t yell. He didn’t lose his temper. His voice was as smooth and flat as winter ice.
“You run an agency that contracts manual labor for corporate estates, Mr. Vance,” Alessandro said softly, tossing the manila folder onto Arthur’s lap. “You pay minimum wage, skim thirty percent off the top in illegal administrative fees, and when a woman with a chronic illness misses a shift because she can barely breathe, you threaten her livelihood to squeeze extra hours out of her child.”
“It’s—it’s standard business practice!” Arthur stammered, his eyes darting frantically toward Marco. “Everyone in the district does it! Margin protection!”
“Margin protection,” Alessandro repeated, tasting the words as if they were foul. He leaned down, placing his hands on the arms of Arthur’s chair, bringing his face inches from the contractor’s sweating forehead. “You stole from a sick widow. You terrified a six-year-old girl. And you brought your predatory little operation into my city.”
Alessandro straightened up, sliding his gaze toward Marco.
“Liquidate his assets,” Alessandro ordered smoothly. “Every bank account, every vehicle, every square foot of office space tied to his agency. Transfer seventy percent of it directly into a medical trust for Sofia Delgado. The remaining thirty percent can be used to pay every single worker he’s cheated over the last five years.”
“And Vance himself, Boss?” Marco asked, his knuckles cracking.
“Revoke his business license permanently. Then put him on a bus to Buffalo with twenty dollars in his pocket and tell him if he ever steps foot in New York County again, the next room won’t have concrete walls—it’ll have a river attached to it.”
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“Understood,” Marco said, a grim smile touching his lips.
As Alessandro turned and walked out of the room, leaving Arthur Vance sobbing in the dark, he adjusted his cuffs. The corporate machine had been calibrated. But there was still a little girl upstairs sitting in an oversized janitor’s uniform, waiting for her mother’s study to be cleaned.
