Chapter 8 - The Wrath of Don Moretti
The cellar beneath the estate’s old carriage house was cold, damp, and smelled of earth and iron.
Isabella Romano sat tied to a heavy wooden chair in the center of the concrete floor, illuminated by a single dangling bulb. Her designer silk blouse was torn, her blonde hair matted with sweat and dirt. Standing in the shadows around her were Frank Vitucci and Bruno, their faces grim and pitiless.
The heavy steel door groaned open, and Alessandro walked down the stone steps.
He had showered and changed into a clean black suit, but the scent of gunpowder still clung to him. In his hand, he held a manila folder.
“Alessandro!” Isabella screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria. “You cannot do this to me! My father will turn your city into ashes! Untie me this instant!”
Alessandro stopped two feet in front of her. He did not sit. He looked down at her as if she were a roach crawling across his kitchen floor.
“Dario is dead, Isabella,” Alessandro said quietly.
Isabella’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes darted wildly. “I don't know who that is! I had nothing to do with this!”
Alessandro opened the folder and dropped several photographs into her lap.
They were surveillance photos taken three hours earlier: Isabella slipping a thick envelope of cash through the iron bars of the east pavilion to Dario; Isabella handing him an electronic keycard; Isabella speaking on a burner phone behind the greenhouse.
“Dario spoke before he died,” Alessandro lied smoothly. “And your phone records from the burner have already been pulled by my people in telecom. You gave him five hundred thousand as a down payment. You promised him five million from your father once Lily was dead.”
Isabella began to shake uncontrollably. The arrogance that had sustained her since childhood began to dissolve, replaced by the sheer, paralyzing terror of facing a man who had no limits.
“She was just a maid’s child!” Isabella wept, tears streaking her makeup. “She ruined my life! I was supposed to be the queen of New York! I was supposed to have everything! And you threw me away for her!”
“You were never going to be queen of anything,” Alessandro said, his voice dropping into a register that made the concrete walls feel colder. “You are a vain, cruel, pathetic creature who thought cruelty was strength. You tried to murder a three-year-old child in her sleep.”
“What are you going to do to me?” Isabella whispered, her teeth chattering. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“Shooting you would be too clean,” Alessandro replied. “And I do not kill women. Even women like you.”
Isabella let out a desperate, shuddering breath of relief. “Thank God—”
“You misunderstand me, Isabella,” Alessandro interrupted, his voice devoid of warmth. “I will not kill you. But your father will.”
Isabella froze. “What?”
Alessandro leaned down, his face inches from hers. “An hour ago, our tactical teams intercepted your father’s main transport convoy crossing the George Washington Bridge. They were carrying thirty million dollars worth of untraceable bearer bonds and arms. We took everything. And alongside those bonds, we planted the evidence that you sold out your father’s private financial routes to the federal authorities in exchange for witness protection.”
“No...” Isabella gasped, turning pale as a corpse. “No! He’ll kill me! He kills traitors! He killed his own brother for skimming!”
“Then I suggest you run very fast when you leave here,” Alessandro said coldly. He turned to Frank Vitucci. “Cut her loose. Put her in an unmarked car and drop her off in the middle of Newark with no phone and no money. Let her father find her.”
“Alessandro, please!” Isabella shrieked, thrashing against the ropes as Frank approached with a combat knife. “Please, just kill me! Alessandro!”
Alessandro did not look back as he climbed the stone stairs and pushed open the steel door, leaving her screams to echo in the damp dark below.
He walked out into the chilly night air, where Bruno was waiting with an umbrella.
“Is everything prepared for Chicago?” Alessandro asked, buttoning his coat against the wind.
“Silvio has three hundred men positioned along the northern border,” Bruno replied smoothly. “Vincent Romano has barricaded himself in his country estate near Lake Forest. He knows the end is coming.”
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“Good,” Alessandro said, looking up toward the second-floor windows of the main mansion, where a warm light burned behind the curtains of the master bedroom. “Let us finish this. My daughter deserves to sleep in peace.”
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