Chapter 9 - The Purge
By dawn, the rain had cleared, leaving the estate wrapped in a pale, crystalline mist.
In the private courtyard of the Romano manor, thirty-eight guards stood in rigid formation, their weapons laid on the gravel before them. Luca and a fresh detail of loyalists stood flanking the terrace, their carbines held at the low-ready.
Corrado Romano was brought out in handcuffs, his face bruised from interrogation. He stood before the stone bench where Mia had slept only twelve hours earlier.
The French doors of the terrace opened. Damian stepped out, pushing Anthony in a wheelchair draped in heavy wool blankets. Behind them walked Elena, holding Mia’s hand.
When Corrado saw his brother alive, seated in the open sunlight, his knees gave out. He collapsed onto the gravel, trembling.
"Anthony..." Corrado pleaded, his voice breaking. "I spared your life. For twenty-two years, I couldn't pull the trigger. Remember our mother. Remember our blood."
Anthony looked down at his younger brother with eyes that carried no anger—only an immense, devastating exhaustion.
"You didn't spare me out of love, Corrado," Anthony said softly, his voice carrying clearly across the silent courtyard. "You kept me alive because you were a coward. You wanted my empire, but you were terrified that without my codes, my accounts, and my ghost watching over you, the other families would tear you apart. You traded my life for your ambition."
Anthony turned his head slowly to look at his son. "Damian. The family is yours. It has been yours since the day I fell. Clean your house."
Damian stepped forward, his eyes sweeping across the thirty-eight guards who had failed—or been paid—to see a child cross their perimeter.
"Any man who took Corrado’s envelopes has until midday to leave the state," Damian announced, his voice ringing like an iron bell against the stone walls. "If you are found east of the Ohio border by sundown, you will be hunted. Luca, escort my uncle to the river."
May you like
Corrado screamed, thrashing as two stone-faced guards hauled him backward across the gravel path, his frantic pleas fading into the damp woods until a single, muffled gunshot echoed from the direction of the Schuylkill River, followed by absolute silence.
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