23. Leander
Leander
The tail lights of Kara’s car disappear down the long, gravel driveway of the estate before I turn on my heel.
She doesn’t need to see what I’m about to do; she’s seen enough blood in the past weeks.
I pull my shoulders back, adjust the cuffs of my jacket, and walk back through the front doors of the limestone villa. The house is dead quiet now.
I head down the main corridor toward the subterranean stairs beneath the north garage.
The air gets colder with every step down, transitioning from polished oak and espresso to damp concrete, rust, and salt lingering from the river.
Capo Valenti is standing near the reinforced steel door at the bottom of the landing, leaning his frame against the concrete wall while smoking a thin cigar.
Two armed guards stand three feet back, their hands folded neatly in front of their belts.
Valenti looks up as my boots hit the bottom step. He takes a slow drag, blowing a ring of blue smoke toward the bare overhead bulb.
"Her driver get her to the courthouse alright?" Valenti asks, his rough voice echoing off the damp walls.
"She's fine," I stop in front of the door.
"Smart girl," Valenti mutters, tapping an ash onto the floor. "Antonio Rossi didn't deserve a daughter like that. If she worked for my firm, I'd give her twenty percent of the gaming tables just to keep her on retainer."
"She doesn't work for firms," I quip. "Is he inside?"
"Stripped his phones, took his keys, wiped his secondary account cards," Valenti says, reaching into his coat and pulling out a brass key ring. "Your father called an emergency wire to the commission five minutes ago. Bernardo’s political backing is gone. The south capos pulled their guarantees, and Roberto ordered a swift, absolute execution by noon. He’s a dead man walking, Leander. "
"Hand me the key, Valenti," I say.
Valenti unhooks the key from the ring, drops it into my palm, and nods to his two guards.
"We'll be at the top of the stairs," Valenti says, turning toward the landing. "Take your time, Doctor."
I slide the key into the iron lock, turn the tumbler until it clicks with a solid, metallic thud, and push the steel door open.
The holding room is small, dark, and windowless, lit only by a single wire-caged bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Capo Bernardo is sitting on the cold concrete floor in the far corner, his bespoke suit jacket discarded on the bench, his tie pulled loose at his collar.
Sweat has soaked through his linen shirt, pasting the thin gray hair to his forehead.
When the door's frame clicks shut behind me, Bernardo jumps, scrambling backward against the concrete wall until his spine hits the corner.
"Leander..." Bernardo gasps out, his hands coming up in a shaking, defensive gesture. "Listen to me... listen to me for one minute. The girl... she showed you partial bank statements! You know how offshore shells work, anyone can buy a secondary sub-account signature!"
I don't answer him. I step into the center of the room, unbutton my suit jacket, fold it neatly, and set it on the wooden bench near the door. I unbutton my cuffs, rolling the white sleeves up past my forearms, exposing the sterile bandage taped over the bullet graze on my left arm.
"Leander, please!" Bernardo begs, his raspy voice cracking as he watches me roll up my right sleeve. "I helped your father build the north docks! I gave forty years to this family! You're a doctor! You took an oath!"
"I took an oath to do no harm in a hospital, Bernardo," I tell him. "We aren't in a hospital."
I close the six feet between us before he can scramble to his feet.
I catch him by his shirt collar, yanking his two-hundred-pound frame off the floor, and drive my right fist straight into his left shoulder joint.
A sickening CRACK echoes through the small room as the humerus pops clean out of the socket. Bernardo lets out a high, screeching howl of agony, his face turning pale as he collapses sideways against my leg.
I don't let him fall. I catch him by his throat, pinning him back against the concrete wall.
"You sat at my father's table for fifteen years," I whisper softly, my face inches from his sweating, tear-streaked eyes. "You drank his wine, you took his kickbacks, and you watched a twelve-year-old boy carry his mother's blood under his fingernails."
"It... it was business!" Bernardo wheezes out, blood spraying from his lip as he chokes against my grip. "It was just... transit routes..."
"She was just thirty-one years old," I grunt.
I grab his right hand, wrapping my fingers firmly around his thumb and wrist, and execute a swift, downward leverage twist.
The radius and ulna snap with a wet thud.
Bernardo lets out a breathless, gurgling scream that cuts off into shuddering gasps as tears pour down his cheeks.
He collapses onto his knees, cradling his ruined arm against his chest, his entire frame shaking violently in pure terror.
I kick his knee and hear a pop as his screams intensifies.
"Kill me..." Bernardo sobs, coughing up red fluid onto his ruined shirt. "Just... pull a gun and kill me, Leander... please..."
"An easy death is a mercy you don’t deserve," I say, standing over his trembling body. "The commission stripped your rank ten minutes ago. You're going to sit on this concrete floor and feel every broken bone in your body until my father's men come down those stairs to finish the execution."
I turn my back on his sobbing, broken frame, step out through the steel door, and lock the iron tumbler behind me.
I walk over to the small utility sink in the corridor, turn on the cold tap, and begin scrubbing my hands and wrists with deliberate, rhythmic precision. Water splashes against the porcelain, washing away the sweat and faint red smears from my knuckles.
Valenti is waiting at the top of the stairs, leaning against the doorframe leading into the main house. He looks down at my wet hands, then looks toward the subterranean door.
"Is he breathing?" Valenti asks.
"He's breathing," I say, drying my fingers with a paper towel from the dispenser. "Tell Roberto's men not to touch him or feed him, he needs to writhe in pain for a while before granting him death."
Valenti gives a single nod. "The Don is waiting in the study. Your brother is still inside."
I toss the paper towel into the bin, adjust my sleeves, and walk back down the wide carpeted hallway toward the study.
Inside, the atmosphere has shifted. Don Roberto sits behind his desk, a fresh cup of dark espresso at his elbow, reviewing the revised harbor contracts that Capo Valenti’s firm will be taking over from Bernardo’s defunct holdings. The room smells of old leather, paper, and cold victory.
Sitting in the corner, slumped in his motorized wheelchair, is Vincenzo.
Without Bernardo backing him from the shadows, without his liquid accounts, and with his street crew dead on Commerce Street, Vincenzo looks completely hollowed out.
His jaw is still bound in stainless steel brackets, his face swollen purple, but the arrogant, feverish posture he maintained for weeks has entirely vanished. He looks small, pathetic, and cornered.
When I walk through the doors, Vincenzo’s eyes snap to mine.
I walk down the length of the Persian rug and stop three feet from Vincenzo’s wheelchair.
Vincenzo’s good left hand twitches against his armrest, his fingers tightening into a white-knuckled fist. He leans forward as far as his neck brace allows, his breath whistling wetly through the steel wires in his mouth as he glares up at me with pure, bitter hatred.
"You... bastard," Vincenzo wheezes out through his wired teeth, his voice choked and muffled, spit spraying over his lip. "You think... you won..."
"I didn't come here to win a game, Vincenzo," I tell him, my posture immovable.
Vincenzo lets out a bitter, gurgling sound that is half a laugh and half a sob. He slaps his good hand violently against his armrest, shaking his head.
"You destroyed... everything!" Vincenzo spits out, his dark, bloodshot eyes wide with manic frustration. "You brought that Rossi bitch into our house! You froze my accounts! You turned everyone against me! You ruined my standing with the commission!"
Of course none of it is his fault.
"Bernardo played you like a child, Vincenzo," I say, my raspy voice quiet and devoid of heat.
"He was helping me!" Vincenzo tries to roar, though the words come out as a pathetic, raspy hiss. "He was the only one... who respected my title! You took my harbor permits! You took Father's love! You walked into this house and stole my entire life!"
Don Roberto sets his espresso cup down against the saucer, looking over at us from his desk.
"Nobody stole your life, Vincenzo," I step an inch closer until my shadow falls completely over his wheelchair. "You threw it away because you were too arrogant to realize nobody owes you anything."
Vincenzo trembles, his chest heaving under his vest as he looks up into my face.
The rage in his eyes slowly gives way to something far worse, the cold, terrifying realization that he has nowhere left to turn.
He has no enforcers left to call, no accounts to draw from, no capos willing to take his meetings, and no backing from the old man sitting behind the desk.
He is completely isolated, stripped of every safety net he ever owned.
"Father..." Vincenzo stammers out, turning his bloodshot eyes toward Roberto in a desperate, begging gesture. "Father... look at him... he's setting me up..."
Roberto doesn't say a word. He doesn't offer a hand or a defense. He simply turns a page on his desk binder, completely ignoring his eldest son's existence.
Vincenzo’s chin drops toward his chest. His shoulders slump, his good hand slipping limply off the armrest as a quiet, broken sob escapes his wired mouth. He looks like a ghost sitting in an expensive chair, humiliated, broken, and backed into a corner from which he will never escape.
I stare down at my brother for three long seconds. I don't feel triumph, and I don't feel pity. I just feel the quiet, unshakeable certainty that the wall we built around our lives is finally solid.
I turn on my heel, button my jacket, and walk out of the study, leaving the Moretti estate and its broken remnants behind me as I head back out to my car.