Chapter Nine — “The Judas Pact”
1309 Words
“Every kingdom falls from within.”
The bells of Palermo rang hollow that morning, swallowed by the gray hum of sirens. Matteo Rossi stood in the shattered remains of his office, smoke curling through the air like ghosts refusing to leave. A bomb had gone off before dawn—small, precise, personal. The kind of attack that whispered betrayal.
The marble floors were cracked, the lion crest scorched. Enzo stood beside him, face pale, his left arm wrapped in gauze.
“They planted it under the conference table,” Enzo said. “Military-grade. Someone knew the layout.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened. “Someone inside.”
He picked up a shard of glass, blood from his palm running down the reflection. In the jagged surface, he saw himself dark suit torn, eyes hollow, a man made of scars and smoke.
“Any casualties?” he asked quietly.
“Three dead. Two guards, one accountant.”
“Names.”
“Ricci, Lupo, and…Carlo.”
Matteo froze. “Carlo?”
Enzo nodded grimly. “He was the one handling your Zurich transfers.”
Matteo let out a slow breath, knuckles whitening around the glass. “Then it wasn’t just money they stole. It was trust.”
He turned to the shattered windows. Outside, Palermo was waking up, unaware their king’s palace had been turned into a war zone.
“Call everyone,” he said finally. “The inner circle. Noon. No excuses.”
By midday, the grand dining room of Palazzo Bellini was packed. The long mahogany table gleamed under
the chandelier’s broken light. Men in suits sat with restless hands, eyes darting toward Matteo like prey
waiting for a predator to pounce.
He entered last. No guards, no ceremony—just quiet power. Every footstep was a sentence.
Matteo took his seat at the head of the table, his movements slow, deliberate. “Someone tried to kill me this morning,” he said. “That means someone in this room forgot who made them rich.”
Silence. You could hear the rain hitting the windows.
“I’ve buried men for less,” Matteo continued, his tone flat, emotionless. “But I’m giving you all one chance.
Whoever’s playing Judas step forward now, and I’ll make it quick.”
No one moved.
Enzo paced behind him, hand hovering near his gun. “Matteo, maybe”
Matteo raised a hand. “No maybe. We’re done playing polite.”
He stood, slowly removing his jacket. “I built this family with blood. I made you kings. But somewhere along the way, one of you thought you could wear my crown.”
He leaned forward, voice sharp enough to cut glass. “Let’s see who bleeds for it.”
Enzo dragged a man from the end of the table,a small-time consigliere named Franco. He was sweating through his shirt.
“Franco,” Matteo said softly. “You’ve been moving shipments through the south ports, haven’t you?”
Franco nodded. “Yes, boss. Always have.”
“And yet one of those trucks went missing last week. Do you know where it went?”
Franco swallowed hard. “I—I don’t, I swear. Maybe it was”
The gunshot came before he finished. Matteo’s pistol smoked against the table. Franco slumped sideways, blood spilling across the polished wood.
The room froze. No one spoke.
Matteo holstered his weapon. “That’s what silence costs me. The next man who lies pays double.”
A few seats down, Viktor Petrov, the Russian, cleared his throat. “We all respect you, Matteo, but killing your men in front of us”
Matteo’s glare cut him off. “Respect?” he said, voice low. “You think this is about respect? It’s about order. The second I show weakness, every rat in this city crawls out of its hole.”
He turned to Enzo. “Seal the docks. Freeze all movement until I say otherwise. No money leaves Palermo.”
“Got it.”
“And send flowers to Franco’s mother,” Matteo added quietly. “Make sure she knows her son died loyal.”
Enzo hesitated. “But”
“I said loyal.”
That was Matteo’s way of rewriting truth. In his world, even betrayal could be buried under loyalty if it kept the family from tearing itself apart.
When the meeting broke, only Enzo and Isabella remained. She stood near the window, arms folded, watching the blood dry on the floor.
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” she said softly.
“I had to show them I still run this kingdom,” Matteo replied.
“By becoming the tyrant they fear?”
He looked at her, eyes hard. “They don’t follow saints, Isabella. They follow survivors.”
She stepped closer. “And how long before you’re the only one left?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked past her toward the balcony. The rain had turned to fog. Palermo stretched out beneath him, a labyrinth of power and betrayal.
Enzo joined him a moment later, a cigarette dangling from his lip. “You really think it’s someone in the circle?”
“I know it is.”
“Then who?”
Matteo’s voice was quiet. “Someone who knows I won’t kill them.”
Enzo’s eyes widened. “Family?”
Matteo said nothing.
A memory flashed behind his eyes,his younger brother Luca, the one he’d kept out of the business. The one who had vanished months ago after refusing Matteo’s money. The one who’d always said, You can’t build peace from blood, Matteo.
Maybe Luca had finally decided to prove it.
He turned back to Enzo. “Find him.”
Enzo nodded. “And when I do?”
“Bring him to me alive.”
That night, Matteo sat alone in the ruins of his study. The bomb’s smell still lingered,metal and smoke
and betrayal. He poured whiskey into a cracked glass and stared at the lion emblem burned into the wall.
“The crown eats everyone,” Bellini’s old voice whispered in his memory.
He raised the glass, toasting the ghosts. “Then let it choke.”
A knock came at the door. Isabella stepped in, wearing a long black coat, her hair loose from the rain.
“I have news,” she said. “Your brother’s alive.”
Matteo didn’t move. “Where?”
“Rome. With people who hate you more than they fear God.”
He took a slow sip, eyes never leaving hers. “Then it’s true.”
She nodded. “He’s the one who emptied Zurich. The one who called the hit.”
Matteo’s grip tightened on the glass until it cracked in his hand. Blood mixed with whiskey, dripping onto the desk.
Isabella flinched. “Matteo”
“Leave,” he said quietly.
“Don’t do this. He’s your brother.”
“He stopped being my brother when he tried to bury me.”
“You’ll kill what’s left of you if you go after him.”
Matteo’s eyes met hers, cold and distant. “That part of me died a long time ago.”
She hesitated, then left him to the silence.
When the door closed, Matteo opened the drawer and pulled out an old photograph—two boys in front of a half-built church, arms around each other, smiling. Luca had always been the dreamer, Matteo the fighter.
Now one had betrayed the other, and the price of crowns was blood.
Matteo set the picture on fire. The flames curled around the edges, eating their faces until only ash remained.
He watched it burn without blinking.
Then he whispered, “If it’s Judas I must face, then I’ll wear the crown of thorns myself.”
Outside, the bells of Palermo rang again this time not for morning, but for war.
- Writer
