Chapter 5 - The Snake's Tail
By three in the morning, the rain had stopped, leaving the grounds of the Moretti estate dripping with fog.
Inside the subterranean security bunker beneath the east wing, Julian was tied to a heavy iron chair beneath a single hanging lightbulb. His knuckles were bruised, his expensive suit ruined, his eyes wide with wild, unadulterated terror.
Across from him, Aleandro sat on a wooden crate, holding a leather-bound ledger—the original record book from Moretti Construction three years ago.
“I know about the crane, Julian,” Aleandro said quietly, turning a page. “I know you cut the cable to collect twelve million in insurance. I know David Carter caught you on the security cameras, so you dropped the load on him before he could reach the site office.”
Julian gasped, his breath coming in ragged hitches. “Aleandro... please... I was in debt! The Russian syndicate in Brighton Beach... they were going to break my legs! I had no choice!”
“You had a choice to come to your brother!” Aleandro roared, slamming the ledger against the table with a sound that made Julian jump out of his skin. “I would have paid your debt! I would have protected you! But you murdered an innocent man, left his wife with nothing, and then tried to use his orphan daughter to frame her mother for my murder!”
“I didn't want to kill you!” Julian wept, tears leaving clean streaks through the dirt on his face. “Dominic made me do it!”
Aleandro froze.
The air in the bunker turned instantly sub-zero.
“Dominic?” Aleandro whispered, his voice dropping into a terrifying quiet.
Dominic Moretti. Their uncle. The elder statesman of the Moretti crime family who sat on the Commission in Chicago.
“Yes!” Julian confessed, nodding hysterically. “Uncle Dominic wants full control of the East Coast ports! He knew you would never agree to smuggle synthetic drugs through the New York piers! He said if I eliminated you and framed the maid, he would make me the head of the family and clear all my debts!”
Aleandro stood up slowly, closing the leather ledger. He looked down at his younger brother with a mixture of disgust and profound pity.
“You sold your own blood to Chicago,” Aleandro murmured.
“Aleandro, please! I’m your brother!” Julian sobbed, thrashing against his leather restraints. “Don't kill me! Please, by our mother’s memory, don't kill me!”
Aleandro walked to the reinforced door, opening it slightly. He turned his head back one last time.
“You stopped being my brother the moment you let that little girl watch her mother get dragged away in handcuffs,” Aleandro said coldly. “Gideon, keep him alive until Sunday. We have a family meeting to arrange.”
He stepped out into the hallway, pulling out his private satellite phone.
He dialed a secure line that rang three times before an elderly, raspy voice answered.
“Aleandro?” Uncle Dominic’s voice boomed through the speaker, sounding warm and hypocritically affectionate. “My boy! I heard the terrible news from New York! Are you alright? Did they catch the maid who tried to poison you?”
Aleandro stood in the dim corridor, his hand tightening around the phone until the plastic groaned.
“I’m alive, Uncle,” Aleandro said, his voice completely calm, completely smooth. “And the maid has been taken care of. I’m hosting a special dinner at the estate this Sunday at eight p.m. to announce my new successor.”
A brief pause hung on the line. “A successor? So soon, nephew?”
“My health is failing after the poison, Uncle,” Aleandro lied flawlessly. “I need a strong man from the family to take the mantle. I want you at the head of the table.”
“I wouldn't miss it for the world, my boy,” Dominic chuckled softly. “Rest well. The family is in good hands.”
May you like
Aleandro clicked the call off, staring at the blank screen.
“Yes, it is,” Aleandro whispered to the empty dark. “Because by Sunday night, there won't be any traitors left alive.”
