Chapter 8 - Vengeance and Justice
Vanessa was hyperventilating, her eyes fixed on Luca’s boots. “Luca... please... I’m your fiancée... we were going to be married in December... please, have mercy... I was scared...”
Luca stared down at her with a look of cold, clinical detachment.
“Mercy is for human beings, Vanessa,” Luca said softly. “You ceased being human the moment you tried to bury my mother in a chemical asylum to pay for your card games.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved the emerald-cut engagement ring that had been left upstairs. He dropped it onto the table beside the tarnished gold signet ring.
“You will not die tonight, Vanessa,” Luca said.
Vanessa looked up, a glimmer of pathetic hope flashing in her tear-stained eyes. “You... you’re letting me go?”
“No,” Luca said, his voice devoid of all warmth. “You will spend the rest of your natural life in the exact facility you booked for my mother. The private sanatorium in Wisconsin.”
Vanessa gasped, the blood draining from her lips. “No... no! You can't! That place... they drug the patients! They lock them in white rooms!”
“I know,” Luca said calmly. “The director has already been contacted. I purchased the entire property thirty minutes ago through one of my holding companies. You will have a lovely room on the third floor. No mirrors. No jewelry. No phones. And every morning, the nurses will give you the exact dosage of sedatives you prescribed for Sofia.”
“Luca! Kill me! Just shoot me!” Vanessa shrieked, clawing at the concrete floor as Vincenzo gripped her arms. “Don't send me there! Luca!”
Her screams tore through the subterranean vault, fading gradually into the distance as the freight elevator doors ground shut, carrying her away to her living purgatory.
Only Don Marco Bellini remained.
The old man sat alone under the harsh light, his head bowed, waiting for the bullet.
Luca drew his pistol, resting the barrel against the table.
“Marco,” Luca said. “Your empire is dissolved. By noon tomorrow, every warehouse, every shipping container, and every bank account bearing the Bellini name will belong to the Moretti family. Your capos have already sworn allegiance to Vincenzo.”
Marco nodded slowly, broken. “Do it, then. End it.”
Luca didn't raise the gun. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at his mother.
“Ma?” Luca asked. “What is your judgment?”
In the mafia, the word of the boss was absolute—unless the crime was against the mother. Sofia held the final power of life and death over the man who had ordered her assassination.
I watched Sofia’s hands.
She lifted her left hand slowly. Her fingers moved with quiet, measured grace.
*Let him live,* she signed.
I translated her words, stunned by the mercy. “She says... let him live.”
Luca frowned slightly. “Ma? He tried to kill you.”
Sofia looked at Marco Bellini with eyes that held centuries of sorrow. Her fingers continued to move.
*He will live with the knowledge that his greed destroyed his house,* I translated, Sofia’s silent voice filling the cold room. *He will attend the funerals of his sons. He will know his daughter rots in a cage of her own making. Strip him of his name, strip him of his wealth, and let him walk the streets of Chicago as a beggar. Death is an easy escape. Living with total ruin is the only true punishment for a man like Marco.*
Marco Bellini began to weep, his shoulders shaking violently. For a mafia boss who had ruled through pride and fear, being reduced to a nameless, penniless ghost on the very streets he once owned was a punishment infinitely worse than a bullet to the skull.
Luca looked at his mother for a long moment, then slowly nodded.
“Vincenzo,” Luca ordered. “Cut his bonds. Drive him to the West Side. Take his wallet, his coat, and his shoes. Drop him on Skid Row. If he ever approaches a Moretti property or speaks to an associate again, kill him on sight.”
“Yes, boss.”
Within minutes, the cold storage room was cleared of prisoners. The guards swept the floor, removing the blood, the documents, and the broken ties.
The war that had threatened to tear Chicago apart had been fought, won, and concluded within six hours.
Luca walked over to the table, picked up his mother’s bent, tarnished crest ring, and walked toward us.
He knelt in front of Sofia’s wheelchair, took her frail, wrinkled hand, and gently slipped the gold ring back onto her finger where it belonged.
Sofia let out a soft, trembling breath, curling her fingers around his hand.
Then, Luca looked up at me.
His flint-gray eyes were no longer cold. They were deep, intense, and filled with an emotion that sent a jolt of heat through my entire body.
May you like
“Claire,” he said, his voice quiet in the vast underground room. “Come with us upstairs. It’s almost dawn.”
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