Chapter 3 - Judgment in the DarkThe private study smelled faintly of spilled Barolo and old leather.
When Vincent Bellini was shoved through the double oak doors, he didn't fall. He straightened his jacket, raised his chin, and looked toward the large mahogany desk at the far end of the room.
Adrian Moretti sat behind it.
He looked paler than usual, wrapped in a black cashmere sweater, but his eyes were like chips of obsidian. On the desk directly in front of him sat a crystal glass with a red-stained rim and a tiny, blue-capped glass vial that had been recovered from the garbage chute behind the service pantry.
“Vincent,” Adrian said. The word was barely a breath, yet it carried the weight of an executioner's axe.
“Mr. Moretti,” Vincent replied, his tone steady, though a thin sheen of sweat now glistened on his forehead. “I heard about the terrible accident. Thank God Dr. Greene was able to—'
“Cut the bullshit, Vincent.”
Adrian didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. Marco shoved Vincent forward, forcing him to his knees on the very same carpet where Adrian had nearly suffocated hours earlier.
“Twenty years,” Adrian continued, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the polished wood. “You poured my wine when I was a captain. You stood by my side when they burned our warehouses in Brooklyn. When Elena and Lily died... you were the first person I allowed into this house.”
Vincent stared at the floor, his jaw tight. “If you know, then you know why.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed. “Explain it to me. Because right now, the only thing keeping a bullet out of your skull is my curiosity.”
Vincent let out a dry, humorless laugh. It rattled in his chest. “You think you’re a king, Adrian? You think because you sit in this fortress, you control New York? The Syndicate isn't a family anymore. It’s a dying empire. The Chicago commission reached out six months ago. They offered me the North Jersey docks, full autonomy, and a clean retirement in Palermo if I removed the obstacle.”
“An obstacle,” Adrian repeated softly.
“You lost your edge the day your wife and daughter died,” Vincent spat, looking up, his eyes suddenly burning with bitter resentment. “You stopped expanding. You started showing mercy to debtors. You were going to get us all killed. The car bomb three years ago wasn't just a warning from a rival gang, Adrian—it was a preview. And I decided I didn't want to go down with a captain who had lost his stomach for war.”
The room went completely dead. Even Marco and Sal stopped breathing.
Adrian didn't yell. He didn't slam his fist on the desk. Instead, he slowly stood up from his chair, walked around the mahogany desk, and stopped two feet in front of the kneeling man.
“You’re right about one thing, Vincent,” Adrian said, his voice dropping into a lethal, quiet register. “I died three years ago in that burning car in Manhattan. The man sitting in this chair isn't a family man anymore.”
Adrian reached down, picked up the empty glass vial from the desk, and tossed it onto the floor right in front of Vincent’s knees.
“You tried to kill me with poison because you thought I was weak,” Adrian whispered. “That was your first mistake. Your second mistake was thinking you could walk out of this house.”
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Adrian turned his back on the butler.
“Take him down to the salt cellar,” Adrian commanded without looking back. “And don't let him make a sound.”
