Chapter 26
I walked among the bodies. My Italian shoes stepped around the dark puddles on the cracked concrete with automatic precision. I felt no nausea. Nausea is an emotional response to death. What I felt was a cold, mathematical fury, calculating the loss per square foot.
“Report,” I ordered. My voice echoed through the vast warehouse, competing with the intermittent buzz of a fluorescent light flickering overhead, casting jerky shadows over the massacre.
Franco emerged from the shadows, pale under the artificial light. He'd seen his share of violence, but this... this was surgical. “Five casualties, sir. The entire transport team. No survivors to interrogate. The cargo—high-value electronics we used to mask the weapons shipment—is gone.”
I stopped in front of one of my fallen men. He was face down, a single shot to the back of the head. Execution. There'd been no firefight. No resistance. They were stopped, subdued, and slaughtered.
“The cameras?” I asked, crouching to examine the dead man's wrists. No handcuff marks. They'd trusted whoever stopped them.
“Disabled. Image loop inserted at eleven PM.” Franco ran a hand through his short hair, nerves showing. “Professional, Cassian. Very professional.”
I stood and wiped my hands, though I hadn't touched anything. The filth was in the air itself. I walked to the open cargo door, where the cold night wind came howling through.
“This wasn't just professional, Franco,” I said, staring into the darkness of the rail yard. “It was omniscient.”
This cargo was supposed to leave from Warehouse 9. The switch to Warehouse 4 was a last-minute tactical call—my call, made at six PM to throw off any Kovacs surveillance. The order wasn't transmitted by radio. Wasn't sent by email. It was spoken. In a closed room.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, where a throbbing headache had begun to settle, pulsing in time with the flickering light. “Who knew about Bravo Route?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. The bitter taste of betrayal rose in my throat.
Franco hesitated. He knew where I was going with this. “Only the inner circle, sir. You. Me. And the Caporegimes.”
Moretti. Rossi. Bianchi. Three men. Three pillars of the D'Angelo Family. Men who'd sworn loyalty on blood and saints. Men who watched Vittorio die and accepted—reluctantly—my rise.
One of them had lied. One of them sold out five of our soldiers and millions in merchandise to the Kovacs. Or worse—to himself.
I spun on my heel, turning my back on death. “Clean this up,” I ordered. “Make it look like a robbery gone wrong. Get the port police on our payroll to bury the case.”
“And you, sir?”
“I'm calling an emergency meeting.” I adjusted my jacket, feeling the weight of my gun against my ribs. “I want to look them in the eye before they have time to rehearse their lies.”
The conference room at Varro Holdings didn't have its panoramic view tonight. The blinds were drawn, sealing the space. The only light came from the pendant fixture over the black mahogany table, casting a cone of illumination that left the corners in darkness.
A classic interrogation technique. Light on the suspect, darkness for the interrogator. But tonight, everyone was under the light.
I sat at the head of the table, hands laced together, perfectly still.
To my right, Moretti—a corpulent, red-faced man who breathed through his mouth and had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
To my left, Rossi—thin, elegant, with reptilian eyes that rarely blinked.
And at the far end, Bianchi—the oldest, a traditionalist who still wore silk pocket squares and spoke in Sicilian dialect.
The silence had stretched to four minutes. No one dared break it. They knew something had happened. The emergency line had rung for all of them.
“We lost the Bravo Route shipment,” I finally announced. My voice was flat. No anger. Just facts.
Moretti exploded. “Those damn Russians! I told you! I told you we should've struck first! They're laughing in our faces, Cassian! Five men dead! This is a declaration of war!”
I watched his reaction. The indignation seemed genuine. His face turned purple, a vein bulging in his forehead. Moretti was too stupid to be a good actor, but stupidity could also be a useful disguise.
“Calm down, Enzo,” Rossi said, his voice smooth as oil. He twisted a signet ring on his pinky. “Shouting won't bring the cargo back. The question is: how did they know?”
Rossi looked at me, eyes cold and analytical. “Bravo Route was decided hours before.”
“Exactly,” I confirmed, holding his gaze. “It was an internal decision.”
Bianchi sighed, pulling out his handkerchief to clean his glasses. “Are you suggesting betrayal, Cassian? Among us? We're blood brothers. We served Solaia's father before you learned to walk.”
“Blood dries, Bianchi. And loyalty has a market price.” I stood up and began circling the table, moving around them like a shark in shallow water. “The Kovacs aren’t smart enough to crack our encrypted communications. And even if they were, the order was verbal.”
I stopped behind Moretti’s chair. He tensed, stopped breathing for a second. “Which means,” I continued in a whisper, “that someone in this room picked up the phone the moment they left yesterday’s meeting and made a call.”
“You’re accusing us?” Moretti spun in his chair, aggressive. “I’ve killed for this family!”
“We’ve all killed, Moretti. That’s the bare minimum. The question is who you’re killing for now.”
I kept walking. I stopped behind Rossi. He didn’t move. He kept staring straight ahead, at my empty hands resting on the table. “Clean job, Rossi,” I remarked casually. “No struggle. No trace. The kind of work that takes planning. Or intimate knowledge of security protocols.”
Rossi smiled. A thin smile, humorless. “If I wanted to betray you, Cassian, I wouldn’t steal a truck. I’d put a bullet in your head while you slept. More efficient.”
It was a bold answer. And coming from Rossi, frighteningly plausible.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “Or maybe you want to weaken me first. Strip my resources. Make the Family doubt my competence before you deliver the final blow.”
I walked over to Bianchi. The old man looked tired. “And you, Giuseppe? Retirement on the Amalfi Coast sound tempting? The Kovacs pay well for high-level intel.”
Bianchi shook his head sadly. “I held Solaia in my arms when she was a baby, boy. I wouldn’t sell her future.”
I returned to my chair but didn’t sit. I planted my hands on the table and leaned forward, forcing myself into their line of sight.
“I don’t know which of you is the rat,” I lied.
I had my suspicions. Moretti’s defensive aggression.
Rossi’s psychopathic calm. Bianchi’s convenient fatigue. “But I will find out.”
I let the threat hang in the air. “I’m launching a forensic audit of all Family subaccounts tomorrow morning. I’ll track every penny, every call, every move you’ve made in the last forty-eight hours.”
I caught a micro-movement. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. Rossi’s finger stopped spinning his ring. Moretti swallowed hard. Bianchi blinked faster.
They all reacted to the word “audit.” Money always leaves a trail.
“Until then,” I concluded, straightening up, “consider yourselves under surveillance. No one leaves the city. No one talks to anyone outside this room without my direct authorization. If I smell smoke again, I won’t go looking for the fire. I’ll burn the whole forest down.”
“This is insane,” Moretti grumbled, getting to his feet. “You’re paranoid, Varro. Power’s gone to your head.”
“Paranoia kept me alive when your Don died, Moretti. I suggest you adopt some yourself.”
“Meeting adjourned. Get out.”
They left. One by one. I stood alone in the dark room.
The headache was now a constant throb behind my right eye.
I walked to the bar in the corner and poured myself a whiskey, neat.
My hand trembled slightly. Not from fear—from restraint.
The urge to draw my weapon and shoot all three of them right there had been overwhelming.
But I couldn’t. Killing a Capo without absolute proof would spark a civil war. The soldiers loyal to each of them would revolt. The Family would splinter, and the Kovacs would march in over the ashes to claim what was left. Including Solaia.
I drank the whiskey. The alcohol burned but didn’t warm the ice in my stomach. Someone had betrayed me. Someone who’d shaken my hand, eaten at my table, sworn loyalty. The isolation was absolute. I was at the top of the mountain, and the mountain was crumbling beneath me.
I got back to the penthouse at three in the morning.
I reeked of cigarettes I hadn’t smoked, cheap whiskey, and that lingering stench of death from the warehouse. I felt toxic.
The apartment was silent. The box of pastries and the Chinese takeout had vanished from the coffee table. The pink sofa sat empty. The “peace” I’d felt a few hours ago seemed like a memory from another life.
I walked down the hall toward the master bedroom. The door was ajar.
I slipped in like a ghost. Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating the bed. Solaia was asleep, lying on her side, hugging a pillow. She was still wearing my white shirt.
I stopped at the foot of the bed, watching her.
The image was devastatingly innocent. Hair fanned out, breathing soft, hand relaxed on the sheet.
Hours ago, I’d been ready to surrender to this.
Ready to believe I could have it—the warmth, the laughter, the partnership.
I’d lowered my guard. And the moment I lowered my guard, five men died.
Guilt slammed into me like a fist. I’d been negligent. I’d gotten distracted playing house, playing the loving husband, while snakes slithered into the garden. If I’d checked the protocols one more time… If I’d monitored Rossi’s communications more closely…
Solaia stirred in her sleep. She murmured something inaudible and reached for the empty side of the bed, searching for me. The gesture was so trusting, so full of expectation, that it shattered me.
She expected me to be there. But I couldn’t be. Not now. The traitor was close. Too close. If they knew about the Bravo Route, they knew everything. They knew the security routine. They knew the weaknesses. They knew about her.
Solaia was no longer just my wife. She was the target. The pressure point. The lever they would use to break me. And the closer I stayed to her, the more visible that target became. The weakness the Kovacs saw at the party… I’d confirmed it today.
I stepped back toward the door. I wanted to lie down beside her.
I wanted to bury my face in her neck and forget the smell of blood.
But that would be selfish. To protect her, I needed to be the Consigliere again.
Cold. Distant. Paranoid. I needed to hunt the rat.
And to hunt, I needed to be alone in the dark.
“I’m sorry, Sol,” I whispered into the silence.
I left the room and closed the door softly. I didn’t go to the guest room. I went to the office. I turned on the monitors. The blue light lit up my tired face. I pulled up the financial files on Rossi, Moretti, and Bianchi.
The night would be long. And from now on, no one could be trusted. Not even me.