The blood oath was complete, but my real game was just beginning.
I watched Vincenzo's blood drip onto the church floor, each drop sealing his fate. He thought he had outmaneuvered me, forced me into a corner with his sacred oath. But sometimes the best trap is the one your enemy walks into willingly.
"The oath is witnessed," Giuseppe announced solemnly. "Don Vincenzo has sworn his innocence before this council."
The other family heads murmured their approval. In their world, a blood oath was unbreakable truth. No one would dare lie before God and the ancestors.
Except Vincenzo just had.
I stepped forward, pulling something from my coat. A small recording device, old but functional. My father's insurance policy that Vincenzo never knew existed.
"How unfortunate," I said clearly, "tha
