Chapter 7 - The Final GambitSal pressed accept, holding the phone up between us.
The screen flickered to life, showing the lavish, wood-paneled office of Don Vincenzo’s private penthouse in Manhattan. The old Don was sitting behind a massive oak desk, sipping whiskey, looking entirely untroubled.
"Salvatore," Vincenzo said coldly. "I see your assistant turned out to be more resourceful than Marcus anticipated."
"Your men are dead or captured, Vincenzo," Sal said, his voice dropping into an icy, lethal register. "Your mole is exposed. It's over."
Vincenzo let out a dry, chilling laugh that sent a shiver down my spine.
"Is it?" Vincenzo tilted his camera slightly.
My breath caught in my throat.
Bound to a chair in the corner of Vincenzo’s Manhattan office was an elderly woman with silver hair, tied up with heavy rope, a piece of black tape over her mouth.
"Aunt Rosa..." Sal whispered, his entire body going completely rigid.
"Your late father's sister," Vincenzo smirked. "Did you really think I didn't know you were keeping her hidden in a quiet retirement home in Brooklyn? I had my men pick her up two hours ago while you were playing heroes in Queens."
Sal's fist clenched so hard his knuckles popped. "If you lay a finger on her—"
"You will bring me the steel drive," Vincenzo interrupted, his eyes hardening into flint. "To the rooftop helipad of the Corvini Tower in Manhattan. In sixty minutes. Come alone, Salvatore. If I see a single police car or a single security guard, the old woman goes over the edge of the building."
The screen went black.
Sal stood motionless in the dim bunker. A wave of murderous rage vibrated through his body so intensely that even I stepped back half an inch.
"I have to go," he said, his voice flat, emotionless—the voice of a executioner.
"Sal, it's a trap!" I grabbed his arm. "The moment you hand him that drive on that rooftop, he'll kill you, your aunt, and then he'll come back for me! He has no intention of letting anyone live!"
"I know," Sal said quietly, turning to look at me. "Which is why I'm not going there to negotiate."
"Then what are you going to do?"
Sal walked over to the bunker's hidden armory wall, sliding back a steel panel to reveal rows of tactical gear, sniper rifles, and explosive charges.
"I'm going to end the Moretti war once and for all," he said. "And I need your help to do it."
May you like
I looked at the rack of weapons, then down at my ruined pajama bottoms, then up into the eyes of the man I loved.
"Tell me the plan," I said.
