Chapter 3 - Interrogation of a Traitor
The estate's subterranean wine cellars had been reinforced forty years ago by Alessandro’s father during the northern territory wars. Thick stone walls muffled sound completely. There was no light except for the bare overhead bulb swinging gently from an exposed conduit.
Serena Moretti was tied to a heavy iron chair in the center of the room. Her lavender gown was stained with wine and dirt, her elaborate updo unraveled into ragged strands around her flushed face. When the heavy steel door squeaked open and Alessandro walked in, accompanied only by Nico, her defiance flared anew.
“Alessandro!” she hissed, struggling against the heavy zip-ties securing her wrists to the iron arms. “You have made a catastrophic mistake. My father has already noticed my absence. The Moretti family controls half the port logistics in Genoa! You cross me, and you cut your own throat!”
Alessandro did not answer. He dragged a simple wooden chair across the concrete floor, the screech of wood on stone grating against her raw nerves, and placed it directly across from her. He sat, rested his forearms on his knees, and looked at her.
He said nothing for two full minutes.
The silence was worse than a beating. Serena’s breathing turned shallow. The arrogance on her face began to crumble into twitching anxiety.
“Say something!” she screamed. “Hit me! Do whatever you’re going to do, you butcher!”
“Why Lorenzo Bellini?” Alessandro asked calmly. “Your father chose me. You agreed to the match. You smiled across my dining table every night for two years. What did a gutter rat like Bellini offer you that I didn't?”
Serena’s lips peeled back in a sneer of pure venom. “You? You are a corpse that walks, Alessandro. You have no warmth, no passion, no ambition beyond maintaining your father’s crumbling borders. You treat me like a decorative vase! A political asset! Lorenzo looks at me like I am a queen.”
“Lorenzo looks at you like an unlocked door into my house,” Alessandro replied without emotion. “And like an idiot, you left the key under the mat.”
“He loves me!”
Alessandro sighed, leaning back. He signaled to Nico. Nico stepped forward and dropped a thick manila folder onto Serena’s lap.
“Open it for her, Nico,” Alessandro said.
Nico flipped the folder open, revealing high-resolution surveillance photographs taken across the Swiss border in Lugano over the past three months.
Serena stared down at the images. Her face went slack.
The photos showed Lorenzo Bellini walking arm-in-arm through the gardens of a private villa with Elena Rossi—the eldest daughter of the southern syndicate boss. In one photo, Bellini was kissing the woman; in another, they were leaving an obstetrics clinic, Bellini’s hand resting possessively over Elena’s visibly pregnant stomach.
“No,” Serena whispered, shaking her head violently. “No, that’s fake. You manufactured this! You paid someone to doctor these!”
“Lorenzo brokered an alliance with the southern families four months ago,” Alessandro told her, his voice devoid of pity. “The terms were simple: he marries Elena to unite their territories. But he needed northern financing and northern docks to fund the war. You were not his future queen, Serena. You were his diversion. Once I was poisoned and my territory threw into chaos, Bellini’s forces would have swept through Milan. And do you think he would have kept a treacherous Moretti bride who murdered her own betrothed? He would have eliminated you the very next day to consolidate power with the South.”
Tears of profound humiliation and realization spilled down Serena’s cheeks. She stared at the photographs, her breath catching in broken sobs. “He... he told me we were flying to Madrid. He promised me the estate in Seville.”
“You traded my men’s lives for a fantasy spun by a coward,” Alessandro said, rising from his chair. “Where is the poison delivery scheduled to take place?”
Serena slumped in the chair, broken. “The north service gate. Tomorrow at seven in the morning. The driver’s code phrase is *‘Fresh linens from the valley.’* Lorenzo has fifty men staged in the abandoned textile warehouse two miles east. They are waiting for the confirmation that you took the aconite.”
Alessandro nodded once. He turned toward the door.
“Alessandro!” she cried out desperately. “Alessandro, please! I was foolish! Forgive me! My family—think of the alliance!”
May you like
He stopped at the heavy iron door, turning his head slightly. “The alliance died the second you laid a hand on a child’s mother inside my home. You will remain here until Bellini is dealt with. After that, your father will come collect you. And he will pay for every bullet I expend tomorrow.”
***
