Chapter 6 - THE RECKONING AT DAWN“Turn around, nephew,” Aleandro’s voice cut through the silence like a butcher’s cleaver.
Vincent’s hands trembled as he reached instinctively for his holster. But before his fingers could even brush the grip of his firearm, the deafening roar of a shotgun blast shattered the ceiling tiles just two inches above his head raining plaster dust down over his shoulders.
“Don’t test what’s left of my patience, Vincent,” Sophia said coldly, her finger resting steady on the second trigger. She didn't look like a maid anymore; she looked like an executioner who had waited a very long time for her appointment.
“You… you bitch,” Vincent choked out, his voice cracking with sheer panic as three senior capos stepped out of the shadows behind Aleandro, their weapons drawn and pointed squarely at their former golden boy. “You think killing me changes anything? The syndicate board hates you, Aleandro! They know you’re getting old! They know you went soft the day you let a woman into this house!”
Aleandro walked forward slowly, his leather shoes clicking against the blood-warm marble floor. He stopped right in front of Vincent, towering over him by a full head.
“The board doesn't matter anymore, Vincent,” Aleandro said softly. “Because every single transaction, every bribe, every rigged contract, and every hit you ordered over the last five years has just been auto-forwarded to the FBI’s organized crime division, Interpol, and every rival family from Brooklyn to Palermo.”
Vincent’s eyes bulged. “You… you destroyed the family business? You gave us away?!”
“I didn't give away the family,” Aleandro corrected, his eyes flashing with lethal ice. “I pruned a rotting branch.”
Before Vincent could lunge, the heavy oak doors at the end of the hall splintered inward under the weight of reinforced tactical battering rams. Red and blue sirens began strobing through the shattered windows from the courtyard below.
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Federal agents poured into the corridor, shouting orders, their riot shields gleaming under the dawn light.
And right in the center of the chaos, walking hand-in-hand with a trusted family doctor who had just snuck her out of the safehouse, was four-year-old Emma, wearing her pink rabbit backpack, looking around at the flashing lights as if it were a parade.
