Chapter Seventeen #2
Ana Falco was on the floor, her knees having completely given out. Roselia and Raisa were kneeling beside her, holding the weeping matriarch as she screamed her husband’s name. It was a sound of such profound, apocalyptic devastation that it seemed to crack the very foundation of the estate.
Enzo and Marco burst through the glass doors just as the surgeon delivered the third shock.
The flatline continued its merciless, shrieking drone.
The surgeon stepped back, his chest heaving, his face a mask of defeated sorrow. He looked at the monitor, checked the pale, unresponsive pupils of the patriarch, and slowly, gently placed the defibrillator paddles back onto the cart.
"Time of death," the surgeon whispered, his voice trembling in the sterilized room, "twenty-three-forty."
The Falco empire died in that exact second.
Ana’s scream shattered the remaining oxygen in the room.
Lorenzo broke free from Andre’s grip, falling to his knees beside the bed, burying his face against his father’s motionless hand, his broad shoulders shaking with silent, catastrophic sobs.
Marco grabbed the doorframe, his eyes squeezing shut as a single, furious tear tracked down his face.
Enzo stood perfectly still.
The youngest Falco brother stared at the lifeless body of the man who had spoiled him, protected him, and loved him without condition.
The grief did not break him down into tears.
The grief was a violent, chemical catalyst. It took the agony of the patriarch's death, mixed it with the catastrophic betrayal of the audio file he had just decrypted, and incinerated every ounce of his humanity.
The charming, arrogant, laughing playboy died in that hospital room.
When Enzo Falco turned his head and looked toward the hallway, his eyes were completely, terrifyingly dead. He had become a monster, forged in grief and homicidal vengeance.
***
An hour later, the oak doors of Lorenzo’s private study sealed shut.
The atmosphere in the room was not sorrowful. It was a cold, mechanized void of syndicate execution. Lorenzo stood behind his desk, his face a hardened mask of stone. Andre Zanetti stood by the fireplace, his arms crossed over his chest. Marco paced the edge of the Persian rug.
Enzo stood in the center of the room. He had just laid the printed dossier on the desk, playing the audio file from his encrypted tablet.
Lorenzo stared at the device, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked carved from granite.
"She orchestrated the alleyway," Lorenzo stated, his voice devoid of all warmth. "She utilized you to bypass the gates. She gathered the blueprints, she coordinated with the external strike team, and she fed them the shift changes."
"It is the only logical conclusion," Andre agreed, his booming voice hushed in the grim reality of the betrayal.
"She is a Gambrelli. She is trained in infiltration.
She played the long game, and she executed a flawless assassination.
She is a liability, Lorenzo. A lethal threat operating inside our own walls. "
Lorenzo looked at his youngest brother. He saw the dead, hollow void in Enzo’s eyes.
"We do not execute her," Lorenzo commanded, the authority of the Don reigning over his grief.
"If we execute a daughter of the northern dynasty without a formal tribunal, Vlad and Lucian will burn the country to the ground.
But we do not let her breathe the air of this house.
We secure her. We break her until she confesses her handlers. "
Lorenzo looked at Andre. "Make the call."
"I will secure her," Enzo interrupted.
His voice was an emotionless rasp. Marco stopped pacing, looking at his brother with a flicker of genuine concern. But Enzo did not waver. The woman he loved had murdered his father. It was his duty to chain the monster he had let through the gates.
"Do it," Lorenzo ordered softly.
Arielle was standing by the window in the master suite when the mahogany doors clicked open.
She turned around, her heart aching for the grief she knew the family was suffering. But the moment she saw Enzo’s face, the words died in her throat.
He didn't look exhausted. He didn't look sad. He looked like the Devil.
Enzo crossed the room in three purposeful strides. He didn't offer an explanation. He didn't ask a question. He reached out, his large, calloused hand gripping her upper arm with a bruising, unyielding force that made her gasp in shock.
"Enzo, what are you doing? You are hurting me," Arielle choked out, trying to pull her arm free, her eyes wide with sudden terror.
"Walk," Enzo commanded.
He didn't listen to her protests. He dragged her out of the suite, his grip like a steel vice.
He marched her down the long, shadowed corridors of the estate, bypassing the residential wings, bypassing the security hubs, leading her directly toward the iron-reinforced doors that led to the subterranean levels.
"Enzo, please! Talk to me!" Arielle begged, stumbling slightly as he forced her down the spiraling concrete stairs. The air grew damp and freezing, smelling of ancient stone and deep earth.
She was incredibly pragmatic. She knew the evidence pointed to her.
She knew the family had closed ranks. But the woman who had laid her soul bare for this man, the woman who had trusted him with the deepest, darkest traumas of her life, was shattering into a million irreparable pieces.
He didn't just suspect her; he looked at her with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Enzo stopped at the end of the long, corridor. He shoved her roughly into a small, windowless concrete holding cell, the single bulb swinging overhead casting erratic shadows over the stone.
Arielle caught her balance, spinning around to face him. Tears were streaming down her face, her chest heaving with agonizing betrayal.
"I didn't do it, Enzo," Arielle wept, her voice echoing off the cold walls. "I swear to you on my life, I didn't do it!"
Enzo stood in the doorway. The monster looked at the beautiful, weeping woman who had owned his heart, and he felt absolutely nothing.
"My father is dead," Enzo stated, his voice a low, vibrating whisper of eradication.
He reached out, grabbing the iron handle of the cell door. The steel door slammed shut with a deafening, concussive boom, the metallic sliding of the deadbolt locking into place plunging Arielle Gambrelli into complete darkness.