Chapter 10 - THE UNHOLY TWISTThe Mastermind UnmaskedPrattasio answered the phone, pressing it to his ear while keeping his back pressed against the metal unit.
"Elena, stay down! There’s a sniper—"
"The sniper is mine, Prattasio," Elena’s voice came through the line.
It wasn't her usual soft, emotional voice. It was smooth, calm, and utterly devoid of warmth.
Prattasio froze. The rain suddenly felt ice-cold against his skin. "What are you talking about?"
"Marco was always an idiot," Elena sighed over the receiver. "He thought he was a mastermind. He thought he was going to be the King. But he was just a tool. A very loud, very stupid tool."
Prattasio’s breath caught in his throat. "Elena... why?"
"Because you were soft, brother!" Elena snapped, her tone turning venomous. "You spent ten years protecting women, protecting kids, refusing to touch the drug trade! Do you have any idea how many hundreds of millions of dollars we left on the table because of your 'morals'?! The Five Families were laughing at us! We were becoming weak!"
Prattasio closed his eyes as the horrible truth washed over him.
It was Elena who had engineered the paralysis drug. It was Elena who had hired Dr. Vance. It was Elena who had guided Marco into orchestrating the coup. She had planned to let Marco take the fall for Prattasio’s death, execute Marco later for 'treason,' and step onto the throne herself as the grieving, ruthless sister who avenged her brother.
"The chapel..." Prattasio whispered, his voice cracking with a pain no bullet could ever inflict. "You were crying in the front pew..."
"I wasn't crying because you were dead, Prattasio," Elena chuckled darkly over the phone. "I was crying because when that damn dog started barking, I realized I hadn't given you a high enough dose. I was terrified you were going to wake up right there."
Silence stretched over the roof, broken only by the roar of the wind.
"Where are you, Elena?" Prattasio asked quietly.
"I'm at the estate, Prattasio. Packing my bags," she replied. "The Five Families know I control the offshore accounts now. They answer to me. You can't win this. If you come back, I’ll have fifty snipers waiting for you. Take your dog, take whatever money you have left, and disappear. Consider it a sister's mercy."
The line went dead.
Prattasio lowered the phone. He sat in the rain for a long moment, the crushing weight of ultimate betrayal pressing down on his chest. His sister. The only blood he had left in the world.
He felt a warm, heavy weight rest upon his knee.
He looked down. Veto had pushed his broad, scarred head onto Prattasio’s lap. The Rottweiler’s dark eyes looked up at him—not with fear, not with greed, but with absolute, unwavering loyalty.
In a world full of monsters wrapped in silk and bloodlines built on lies, the only true soul Prattasio had ever known was sitting right beside him.
Prattasio reached out, gripping Veto’s leather collar firmly. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against the dog's scarred brow.
"She thinks blood makes us family, Veto," Prattasio whispered, his eyes hardening into solid, unshakeable diamond. "She forgot that loyalty is forged in the dark."
Prattasio stood up. He loaded a fresh magazine into his pistol, racked the slide, and looked down the rain-slicked staircase leading back down to the city.
"Come on, boy," Don Prattasio Lori said, his voice echoing like thunder across the skyline. "Let's go teach my sister what happens when you don't finish the job."
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Veto let out a low, terrifying bark that echoed through the storm, following his Don down into the night.
THE END... FOR NOW.
