Chapter 5
1430 Words
Rizzo heard the first shot, then a second.
He kicked the back door open, gun drawn, Matteo flanking him.
Inside the cellar, Luca stood breathing hard, blood on his face and hands. Salvatore lay on the ground, throat torn open, eyes wide with something close to relief.
Rizzo took one look and muttered, “So that’s a yes, he was dirty.”
Luca dropped the knife.
“This doesn’t end until Carlo does.”
Marcy tossed a folder onto the desk. “You’re not gonna like this.”
Cruz opened it.
A list of unofficial payments funneled through defunct shell corporations tied to Moretti construction firms.
“Who signed off?” Cruz asked.
Marcy hesitated. “The judge working your wiretap warrants.”
Cruz blinked.
“They’ve got the courts too?”
“Looks like they’ve had them for years.”
Cruz stared at the wall. “If we don’t move soon, they’ll bury this entire thing before we even light the match.”
Luca walked the perimeter like a soldier checking his defenses. The garden where his mother used to pray was gone, replaced with gravel and cameras.
Elena was waiting by the gate.
“You said you wanted honesty,” she said.
“I do.”
“Your father didn’t just order Dominic’s death. He made sure your mother never found out. That’s why she left.”
Luca didn’t move.
She stepped closer. “He forged her suicide note.”
His head lowered slowly.
“I want to help,” she whispered.
He looked at her. “Then prove it.”
“How?”
“Tell me where your wire is.”
She hesitated.
His eyes turned to steel.
She reached under her jacket and removed the small mic. Dropped it into his hand.
Luca crushed it without a word.
Then kissed her once. Soft and brief.
“Next time you lie to me, I won’t be so forgiving.”
Carlo watched the rain streak the windows.
A shadow moved behind him quickly, but not silently.
He turned and saw Vincent.
“You switched sides,” Carlo said.
Vince lit a cigarette.
“I never had a side, just loyalty.”
“To whom?”
“To the man who wins.”
Carlo stood, shaking, furious. “You think Luca can run this family?”
“I think you already lost it,” Vince said.
And walked out, leaving the old man trembling.
Cruz met with Elena in secret, under a foggy street light.
“You crossed the line,” he said.
“I did what I had to.”
“He’s going to use you.”
“I already used him.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Elena didn’t answer.
Behind her, across the water, Brooklyn’s lights glimmered like dying stars.
Bay Ridge, 3:17 A.M.
They came in three SUVs blacked-out, windows tinted, plates stolen.
Inside the Moretti stash house, five men were half asleep, a sixth counting cash.
Then the doors exploded.
Flash bangs, gunfire, screams.
A boy named Gino tried to reach his weapon. A Giannelli soldier put three rounds in his chest.
They lit the place up as they left gasoline, Molotov, and fire licking the sky like a blood ritual.
By the time Luca arrived, there was nothing left but smoke and ash.
A message, written in burnt spray-paint on the brick wall: “YOU’RE NEXT, PRINCE.”
Luca’s face was covered in soot. His suit reeked of burnt bills and death.
“They want a war?” Matteo said.
“No,” Luca muttered. “They want a show.”
He looked at the remains of a dead soldier being zipped into a bag. One of his, a seventeen-year-old.
Rizzo stepped into the light, holding a phone.
“It’s Joey,” he said. “He’s bragging about it. On encrypted channels. He thinks you’re gonna respond big, shootouts, blood in the streets.”
Luca stared off.
“Get me the list,” he said.
“What list?” Rizzo asked.
“Theirs,” Luca answered. “Not the shooters but the accountants. The guys who make it look clean, the ones nobody sees.”
“You’re going after the bankers?”
“I’m going to bankrupt him.”
Cruz stood with his arms crossed, watching Elena scan case files.
“You’re playing both sides now.”
She didn’t look up. “I’m cleaning up your mess.”
“My mess?”
“You let this rot spread for years. I’m the only one in a position to cauterize it.”
Cruz stepped closer. “You’re in too deep.”
“I’m exactly where I need to be.”
He dropped a sealed envelope on the desk.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Something you’re not going to like.”
She opened it.
Photograph,1994, Her father, Carlo Moretti, Joey Giannelli.
“Taken the night before your father ‘died a hero.’”
She backed away slowly, like the truth had a heartbeat and teeth.
The room was dim, the curtains drawn. Carlo sat alone, listening to the weather on an old transistor radio.
Vincent stepped in and shut the door behind him.
“Your son’s burning your income lines.”
“I taught him too well,” Carlo said, voice cracking with dry amusement.
Vincent poured a drink. “What happens when he burns the last one?”
Carlo stared at his hands, trembling, liver-spotted.
“I remind him who made him.”
Vincent smirked. “You’d better move fast. Rumor is, he’s coming here next.”
Joey sat on a velvet couch, cigar in one hand, tablet in the other.
“Two wire transfers frozen,” he muttered. “Caymans just kicked us.”
His underboss, Frankie Velasquez, scowled. “How the hell is he doing this?”
“Somebody’s talking,” Joey growled.
He turned to the room.
“Find the rat, find him, and make it public. I want bones in the street and no more secrets.”
Luca met Elena at a closed poker club once used to launder cash through fake losses.
Now it sat abandoned, the tables dusty, chips still stacked.
“I need a name,” he said.
“I’m not a snitch.”
“No,” Luca replied. “You’re worse, you’re someone who cares.”
She bit back the rage. “You think I want this? You think I want to watch you burn everything down?”
“I think,” he said, “you’re starting to understand that I don’t get to walk away clean.”
He handed her a file.
Inside: a shipping manifest, linked to Joey’s fake medical supply company, code for fentanyl runs.
“Get this to Cruz quietly. Ask him if he wants Giannelli, now’s the time.”
“You’re trusting me again?”
“No,” he said, walking away. “I’m using you.”
She didn’t call after him. Just stared at the file like it might set itself on fire.
The house was quiet. Vincent was gone. The bodyguards were dead before they hit the floor.
Luca moved like a ghost through the halls he’d known as a child past photographs of baptisms and weddings that now felt like lies.
He found Carlo in the dining room, drinking alone.
“I was wondering how long it would take,” the old man said.
Luca stepped closer, pistol in hand.
“You killed Dom.”
“I saved this family.”
“You destroyed it.”
Carlo stood, slow, shaking.
“I gave you everything and you want to throw it away for what? Vengeance?”
“No,” Luca said. “For clarity.”
He aimed the pistol.
Carlo laughed. “You don’t have the guts.”
Luca pulled the trigger and clicked but it was empty.
He tossed the gun to the floor.
“I don’t need a bullet to end you.”
Then he turned and left.
Carlo stood there, trembling like a man already dead.
Joey Giannelli’s convoy rolled slowly through the streets, black Escalades casting long shadows under amber lights.
From the rooftop above, Luca watched through a scope. He wasn’t aiming to shoot, just watching.
Rizzo leaned in. “We can end it right now.”
Luca said nothing.
He watched Joey laugh, kiss his ring, and nod to his crew.
Then he whispered: “Not yet.”
Rizzo frowned. “Why?”
“Because when I kill him,” Luca said, “I want him to know it was me. And I want him to beg.”
- Writer
