Chapter 4 - The Web Unravels
Reggie didn't look Aleandro in the eye. He stood beside Marco Corvini, his hand resting on his gun belt, his breath coming in short, nervous hitches.
"It's business, Aleandro," Reggie said, his voice raspy with shame. "You were going soft. You were talking about retiring to Europe with a maid and her kid! You were going to hand the whole syndicate over to the DOJ immunity deal and leave us with crumbs!"
"I gave you twenty percent of every dock container that came through Lake Michigan, Reggie," Aleandro said softly. "I paid for your son's medical treatment in Zurich. I built your house in North Shore."
"And you treated me like a lieutenant for twenty years!" Reggie snapped, his face flushing dark red. "I was there when your father died! I bled in the alleys of South Side while you were off at your fancy boarding schools! Marco offered me fifty-fifty split of the whole city!"
Marco Corvini chuckled, tapping the barrel of his rifle against his shoulder. "Save the poetry for the graveyard, gentlemen. Here's how this goes, Aleandro. You sign over the offshore banking codes in your safe right now. Then we take Don Carmine and his traitor daughter downstairs, put them in a car, and park it outside Vance’s federal building with a bow on it."
Marco stepped closer, his boots loud against the hardwood floor.
"You take the fall for the whole city, Aleandro. You go to prison for life, or you die in this room right now. Either way, Reggie and I take the crown."
Carmine Romano looked between Reggie and Marco, his chest heaving, realization finally dawning on his old, manipulative brain. "Reggie... you bastard... you were the one who told Isabella about Vance in the first place!"
"Shut up, old man!" Reggie snarled. "You and your daughter were just useful idiots! You thought you were playing the government? I was feeding Vance information through Isabella so he'd keep his eyes on Aleandro while Marco and I built our supply lines through Indiana!"
Aleandro stood behind his desk, watching the three men argue like dogs over a bone.
The web of betrayal was finally complete.
It hadn't started with Isabella’s secret meeting in the study three hours ago. It had started years ago—a quiet, insidious cancer growing at the very heart of his organization. Isabella was an ambitious pawn. Carmine was a bitter old dinosaur. But Reggie—Reggie was the knife in the back he had never seen coming because he had loved him like a brother.
"Are you finished?" Aleandro asked quietly.
The entire room went quiet. Marco stopped laughing. Reggie flinched.
Aleandro slowly reached down and opened his jacket. He didn't reach for a weapon. He pulled a small silver remote control from his waistcoat pocket and pressed the red button on its side.
Instantly, the heavy steel security shutters embedded in the ceiling descended over every window in the study with a deafening CRASH-CRASH-CRASH, sealing the room in total, impenetrable darkness.
"What the hell—!" Marco yelled, raising his rifle.
Before anyone could fire a shot in the dark, the room was flooded with blinding, green strobe lights mounted in the corners. High-frequency acoustic disrupters embedded in the walls detonated with a brain-melting, screeching pitch that sent Marco’s enforcers to their knees, clutching their ears as blood dripped from their noses.
Aleandro didn't need light. He knew every inch of his study with his eyes closed.
He dropped beneath the mahogany desk, pulled a hidden assault shotgun from the mounting beneath the drawer, and fired two deafening rounds into the ceiling.
The blast shattered the decorative plaster, bringing a heavy iron chandelier crashing down directly onto Marco Corvini and his two guards, crushing them beneath two hundred pounds of crystal and iron.
In the blinding green strobe light, Aleandro stepped out from behind the desk, his shotgun leveled at Reggie’s chest.
Reggie was on his knees, his hands covering his bleeding ears, his weapon lying three feet away on the rug. He looked up through the green flashes, seeing Aleandro standing over him like an avenging spectre of death.
"Aleandro... please!" Reggie screamed over the ringing in his ears. "Please! We were brothers!"
"Brothers don't sell each other's lives for fifty percent of a sinking ship, Reggie," Aleandro said softly.
BANG.
The gunshot echoed through the sealed room, dropping the underboss onto his side, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling he had tried so hard to claim.
Aleandro turned the strobe lights off and raised the steel shutters.
The morning drizzle poured bright, natural grey light back into the room, illuminating the carnage. Marco’s men were disarmed and unconscious under the chandelier. Reggie lay dead near the door.
And Don Carmine Romano sat collapsed in a leather armchair in the corner, his cane broken on the floor, weeping silently like an old, broken child.
May you like
Aleandro walked over to his desk, picked up his glass of whiskey, and drank the rest of the cold liquid in one long, smooth swallow.
He looked at Carmine. "Your daughter is waiting for you downstairs, Carmine. The federal agents outside are getting impatient."
