Chapter 17 - The Prodigal's Return
Leo didn't use the door. He swung cleanly into the nursery, his dark wool coat billowing behind him like the wings of a predatory bird, a suppressed carbine locked and leveled at the overturned desk where Victor was scrambling for cover.
"You're late, brother," Julian's voice echoed from the hallway as he limped into the doorway, holding a bleeding rib cage with one hand and a Beretta in the other. "I thought the Swiss alps would keep you frozen for another week."
Leo didn't look at Julian. His dark eyes remained fixed on Victor cowering behind the desk. "You stepped onto Moretti land without an invitation," Leo said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, dead silence that always preceded bloodshed. "In our family, that incurs a tax."
"You think you're the king just because your father handed you the crown?" Julian snarled, raising his pistol toward Leo. "You're just a bastard he picked out of a hospital trash can to soothe his guilty conscience! I am his blood—his true, firstborn son!"
"Blood is a biological accident," Leo replied smoothly, shifting the barrel of his carbine from Victor to Julian without a single tremor in his hands. "Loyalty is a choice. And you made yours eight years ago when you helped Valentina sell our family to Marseille."
Before Julian could pull the trigger, a sharp, metallic click echoed from the doorway behind him.
Marco stood there, his sidearm locked firmly against the back of Julian’s skull, flanked by six veteran Moretti enforcers who had just cleared the lower stairwells.
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"Drop it, boy," Marco rasped, his face like carved granite. "Or I scatter your brains across the nursery wallpaper before your father even gets back from the airfield."
Julian froze. His finger hovered over the trigger of his Beretta for a fraction of a second, trembling with impotent rage. Then, slowly, he let the weapon slide from his fingers, hearing it clatter softly against the hardwood floor.
