Chapter 6 - THE FALL OF VITTORIO BELLINIBy 7:00 AM, the rain over Long Island had cleared, leaving behind a cold, gray dawn that painted the sky the color of lead.
The Bellini estate was a sprawling, gated fortress sitting on twenty acres of prime beachfront property. High stone walls, iron gates, and forty armed guards patrolled the perimeter. Inside the grand marble dining room, Vittorio Bellini sat at the head of a thirty-foot mahogany table, dressed in a bespoke Italian suit, eating a quiet breakfast of espresso and poached eggs.
He was sixty-eight years old, with silver hair, sharp blue eyes, and the calm, elegant posture of a man who had ordered fifty executions without ever raising his voice.
His phone on the table chimed.
Vittorio set his silver spoon down, picked up the encrypted satellite phone, and pressed it to his ear. “Vanessa? Is it done?”
Silence answered him.
Vittorio frowned, his sharp eyes narrowing. “Vanessa? Speak to me.”
A voice answered through the speaker—deep, raspy, and dripping with the cold, absolute authority of the Moretti bloodline.
“Your daughter is dead, Vittorio.”
Vittorio went completely, utterly motionless. His hand tightened around the phone until the plastic groaned beneath his fingers.
“Dominic...” Vittorio whispered, his voice dropping into an icy register.
“She died in a safehouse in upstate New York,” I said over the speaker, my voice calm, steady, and terrifying. “Shot through the heart while trying to execute my son. Just like you tried to burn him in that warehouse.”
Vittorio slowly stood up from the table, his chair sliding back against the polished marble floor with a harsh screech. “You're bluffing. The Commission is meeting in one hour—”
“The Commission knows everything, Vittorio,” I interrupted softly. “Don Carmine Genovese signed your death warrant two hours ago. Your bank accounts in Zurich have been frozen. Your police chief was arrested by federal agents twenty minutes ago. You have no allies left.”
Vittorio walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows looking out over his front lawn.
His jaw dropped.
Cruising slowly up his private driveway, smashing through the heavy iron gates without stopping, were fifteen black armored SUVs bearing the silver crest of the Moretti syndicate. Behind them were six police cruisers with their lights flashing, driven by federal marshals holding execution warrants.
The forty armed guards patrolling the lawn didn't open fire. They threw their weapons onto the grass, raised their hands, and dropped to their knees as the armored vehicles surrounded the estate.
Vittorio stepped back from the window, his breath hitching, his face drained of all color.
The double mahogany doors of the dining room blew open.
Matteo walked in first, flanked by four heavy Moretti enforcers carrying submachine guns. Behind them walked Grace Bennett, holding six-year-old Lucas securely by the hand.
And walking between them, clad in a long black coat, carrying a silver-headed tactical cane, was me.
Vittorio stared at me as if I were a demon raised from the ashes of hell. He looked at my burned neck, my bandaged hands, and the steel-gray eyes that promised him no mercy.
“Dominic...” Vittorio rasped, his voice trembling for the first time in thirty years. “Listen to me... we can work this out... the alliance can be saved—”
“Elena Rossi,” I said, my voice cutting through his panic like a guillotine. “Where did you bury her, Vittorio?”
Vittorio swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically toward the open windows, searching for an escape that wasn't there. “She... she was cremated after the warehouse fire... her ashes are in the garden...”
I walked up to him, stopping inches from his face. I didn't draw a gun. I didn't raise my fist.
I reached into my coat, pulled out a manila folder, and dropped it onto the dining table beside his espresso cup.
“That is the federal indictment for human trafficking, illegal genetic experimentation, and first-degree murder,” I whispered. “You aren't dying today, Vittorio. Death is too easy for you.”
Vittorio frowned, looking down at the legal papers. “What?”
“If I kill you today, you become a martyr for the Bellini loyalists,” I said, leaning in close so only he could hear my words. “Instead, you are going to spend the rest of your life in a federal supermax facility in Colorado. Every capo who ever served you will watch you walk out of this house in chains on live television.”
Federal marshals stepped into the dining room, holding heavy steel handcuffs.
Vittorio looked at the marshals, then looked at Lucas, who was standing beside Grace, staring at the old man with cold, curious gray eyes.
“That boy...” Vittorio whispered, realization dawning on him. “He has my sister’s eyes...”
May you like
“He has Elena’s heart,” I corrected, stepping back as the marshals grabbed Vittorio’s arms and slammed him down against the mahogany table, snapping the handcuffs shut around his wrists. “And he will rule this city long after your name is wiped from the history books.”
As the marshals dragged the weeping, shouting former crime lord out of his mansion, the sunlight broke through the clouds over Long Island, illuminating the grand dining room in brilliant gold.
