Chapter 3 - Blood on the Marble
The silence in the grand foyer was suffocating.
Vanessa scrambled backward across the floor, pressing her spine against the dining room archway, her hands covering her mouth. Margaret Collins was frozen like a statue, clutching Sophie's preschool records to her chest as if paper could stop a hollow-point bullet.
Sophie felt the sudden shift in the air. Children have an instinct for violence; they know when the shadows stop hiding and start hunting. She didn't cry. Instead, she tightened her grip on my collar until her little knuckles turned stark white.
"Daddy," she whimpered, "my tummy hurts."
"Close your eyes, princess," I commanded softly. "Count to ten for Daddy. Think of your pink pony."
"One... two..." she began, burying her face deep into my chest.
I looked at the four guards standing behind Matteo. Tony, Marco, Sal, and Frankie. Men I had paid for a decade. Men whose mortgages I had cleared when the bank threatened foreclosure.
"Tony," I said, my voice calm, level, completely devoid of fear. "Your mother needed an experimental heart surgery three years ago. Who paid the clinic in Zurich?"
Tony’s hand trembled slightly on the grip of his Glock. "You did, Boss."
"Marco," I continued, never looking away from Matteo’s arrogant smirk. "When your brother owed four hundred thousand to the bookies in Queens, who kept him from ending up in a concrete pillar under the Verrazzano Bridge?"
Marco swallowed hard, his eyes dropping to the floor. "You did, Mr. Moretti."
"And yet," I said, shifting my cold gray gaze back to my cousin, "you pull iron on me in my own foyer, in front of my daughter, because this snake promised you a bigger slice of a pie that isn't his to cut."
"They work for the underboss now, Lorenzo!" Matteo barked, his patience snapping. He reached into his waistband, his own silver revolver gleaming under the crystal chandelier. "The old ways are dead! Hand the brat over, or she watches you choke on your own blood right here on your imported marble!"
"Seven... eight..." Sophie whispered against my neck.
"Ten," I whispered back.
I didn't draw my gun. I didn't need to.
"Luca," I said aloud.
From the dark, shadowed arches of the second-floor gallery above us, the sharp, unmistakable clatter of three dozen assault rifles echoed simultaneously.
Red laser dots rained down from the mezzanine, instantly peppering Matteo’s chest, throat, and forehead. A forest of ruby points painted the four traitorous guards until they looked like targets at a carnival shooting gallery.
Matteo froze. The cocky sneer melted off his face, replaced by a sudden, sickening pallor.
Stepping to the edge of the upstairs balustrade was Luca Rossi, my true Head of Security—a man who had served beside my father before I was even born. Flanking him were twenty heavily armed soldiers wearing tactical gear, black balaclavas, and bearing the Moretti crest on their tactical vests.
"You really thought I went to Viktor’s warehouse alone, Matteo?" I asked, taking another slow step down the stairs. "You thought I didn't notice the tracking beacon placed on my vehicle three days ago? You thought I didn't know you met with Don Falcone at the marina in Jersey last Tuesday?"
Matteo’s throat bobbed. He tried to raise his weapon, but a single, suppressed rifle shot cracked from the balcony above.
*Pfft.*
A high-velocity round tore directly through Matteo’s right wrist.
The gold lion ring went flying through the air, clattering against the marble floor before rolling to a stop beside my polished leather shoe. Matteo screamed, clutching his shattered, bleeding arm as his silver revolver clattered uselessly away.
"Drop your weapons," Luca’s gravelly voice barked from the balcony. "Or you die where you stand."
Tony, Marco, Sal, and Frankie didn't hesitate. Their handguns hit the floor with four distinct, hollow thuds. They fell to their knees with their hands locked behind their heads.
Sophie flinched at the sound of Matteo's scream, but I kept my hand firmly over her ear, shielding her sight from the crimson puddle spreading across the floor.
"Luca," I called out without looking up.
"Yes, Don Lorenzo?"
"Take these four pieces of garbage down to the wine cellar. Break their hands so they can never hold a weapon again, strip them of everything they own, and throw them onto the sidewalk in Falcone's territory. If they ever set foot in New York again, feed them to the incinerator."
"Understood, Boss."
Four tactical officers descended the stairs with military precision, zip-tying the traitors and dragging them down the hallway like sacks of laundry.
Now, only Matteo remained on the floor, groaning in agony, his blood soaking through his camel-hair coat. And Vanessa, huddled against the wall, shaking so violently her teeth were chattering audibly.
I turned toward the dining room entrance.
"Margaret," I said gently.
The preschool director stepped forward, her knees wobbling, but she held her chin high. She was a civilian, but she had risked her life to protect my child. In my world, loyalty from an outsider was worth more than gold.
"Take Sophie into the sunroom," I told her, finally peeling my daughter’s clinging arms from my neck. "There are fresh cookies in the kitchen and juice in the fridge. Stay with her until I come get her."
Sophie looked at me, her big brown eyes swimming with unshed tears. "Daddy? Are you coming back?"
"I will always come back for you, Sophie," I said, kissing her forehead. "You are my princess. Nothing in this world will ever take you from me."
Margaret took Sophie into her arms, wrapping her coat around the little girl to shield her view from the bloody hall, and hurried down the private corridor toward the sunroom.
The moment the heavy soundproof door clicked shut behind them, the mask of the loving father vanished.
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The Don of the Moretti Family looked down at his betrayers.
***
