Chapter 4 - THE CONFESSION IN THE BASEMENTTwo hours after the boardroom coup, Marcus Vance was no longer sitting at the head of any table.
He sat tied to a wooden chair in the damp, dimly lit wine cellar beneath the Reyes estate—the very cellar where Luca used to store imported scotch before his poisoning twelve years ago.
The heavy iron door clicked shut. The only light came from a single bare bulb swinging gently overhead, casting long, jittery shadows across Marcus’s sweat-soaked face.
Luca stepped out of the darkness, holding a small glass of amber liquid. He didn't drink it; he just swirled it slowly, watching the amber light catch the glass.
"You always had terrible taste in wine, Marcus," Luca said calmly. "You preferred cheap champagne that tasted like vinegar as long as the label said French."
"You can't do this, Luca!" Marcus sobbed, pulling frantically against industrial-grade zip-ties biting deep into his wrists. "I'm your brother! We're family!"
"Family," Luca repeated, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "Is that what you call slipping a synthetic neurotoxin into my evening whiskey every night for six months? Is that what you call isolating me from the world while you systematically dismantled everything I built?"
Marcus stopped struggling. His chest heaved as he panted for air, his eyes darting frantically toward the stairs. "You'll never prove I acted alone. The board... the federal prosecutors... they'll tear this company apart trying to find the paper trail!"
"There is no paper trail left to find," a calm, professional voice echoed from the shadows near the wine racks.
A sharp-featured woman in a bespoke charcoal suit stepped forward. It was Special Agent Sarah Vance—no relation to Marcus, despite the last name—heading the FBI's Organized Crime and Financial Fraud division. She held an encrypted tablet showing a cascade of green data strings.
"We seized Marcus’s offshore accounts thirty minutes ago, Mr. Costello," Agent Vance said, looking directly at Luca. "Every bribe, every shell corporation in the Caymans, and every medical falsification record has been downloaded and decrypted. Marcus didn't just poison you; he sold classified shipping lanes to an international syndicate out of Eastern Europe."
Marcus slumped forward, all the fight completely draining out of him. The empire he had tried to steal had just collapsed around his ears in less than half a day.
May you like
"Why?" Luca asked quietly, staring down at the man who had betrayed him. "I gave you everything. A name, a career, a seat at my table."
Marcus let out a bitter, broken laugh. "Because you were a god, Luca. And gods don't bleed. I wanted to see what happened when a god finally fell off his throne. I just didn't expect you to crawl back out of hell."
