Chapter 4 - The Clean-Up
The chaos in the executive suite lasted exactly four seconds.
Four seconds of shattering glass, deafening gunfire echoes trapped against mahogany walls, and the wet, heavy sound of blood hitting expensive Persian wool.
Daniel dropped to his knees, clutching his mangled, bleeding right hand against his chest, biting his lower lip so hard the flesh split and poured crimson down his chin. His Sig Sauer lay twisted and smoking ten feet away, a useless piece of shattered metal.
Vincent whirled around, his hand instinctively diving toward the heavy revolver tucked into the small of his back. But before his fingers could even graze the grip, the three lead tactical officers who poured out of the private elevator had their submachine guns locked dead center on his chest.
“Don't do it, old man,” muttered Mateo, my chief of personal security and the man whose sniper rifle had just dismantled Daniel’s hand from the rooftop across the street. Mateo stepped out of the elevator, his face carved from granite, his eyes cold as Arctic ice. “Your retirement plan just got canceled.”
Vincent froze. His hand remained suspended in the air, trembling slightly—not from fear, but from a deep, burning rage. He slowly raised his palms, turning to face me.
I stood motionless behind my desk, the barrel of my Sig Sauer still smoking faintly in the crisp air of the shattered window. I hadn't flinched an inch. For fifteen years, men had whispered that I was too soft, too civilized, too caught up in Harvard business degrees and Michelin-starred restaurants to handle the brutal realities of the underworld my father built.
They had mistaken my education for weakness. They had mistaken my patience for ignorance.
“Thirty years, Vincent,” I said softly, walking around the mahogany desk with deliberate, measured steps until I stood towering over the aging capo. I looked down at him with an expression of profound, chilling detachment. “You watched me learn how to ride a bicycle in the courtyard of our Staten Island estate. You taught me how to field-strip a Beretta when I was twelve. And all the while, you were turning my father’s legacy into your personal fiefdom.”
Vincent let out a harsh, dry laugh, spitting a fleck of blood onto the pristine carpet. “Your father was a sentimental fool, Luca. And you’re worse. You think running restaurants and shipping ports makes you a legitimate businessman? You’re a mob boss wearing a Brioni suit. The moment you start caring about the help—about secretaries and crying brats—you sign your own death warrant.”
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't yell. I simply raised the heavy butt of my pistol and brought it down with crushing, bone-fracturing force against the side of Vincent’s jaw.
The sickening crunch of cartilage echoed in the quiet room. Vincent collapsed instantly, hitting the floor like a sack of wet cement, unconscious before his head even touched the wool.
I turned my cold gaze toward Daniel, who was still kneeling on the floor, gasping for air, clutching his ruined, bleeding hand.
“Daniel,” I said quietly.
The ex-mercenary raised his pale, sweat-soaked face, staring up at me with eyes full of venom and defiance. “Do it. Get it over with, Moretti. You think you’ve won? The commission in Chicago already knows about your soft spots. They’re moving on your freight lines as we speak. You think a little secretary and her brat are going to save your empire?”
“I don't need them to save my empire, Daniel,” I replied, my voice dropping an octave, carrying the terrifying weight of absolute finality. “I built this empire. And today, I’m cleaning house.”
I looked at Mateo. “Take them down to the sub-basement holding cells. Secure Daniel’s hand—get our doctor down there, I want him awake and screaming when he gives me the names of every single associate tied to this mutiny. As for Vincent? Put him in isolation. No visitors, no phone calls, no food until he remembers what it means to bow to a Moretti.”
“Consider it done, Boss,” Mateo barked sharply, gesturing to the tactical team.
Within ninety seconds, the executive suite was cleared of blood, broken glass, and traitors. The tactical team vanished back down the private elevator as smoothly as ghosts, leaving me standing alone in the massive, shattered office with the cold wind howling in through the broken window.
My phone buzzed against my thigh.
I pulled it out. A text from Mateo: Elena and the girl are secure in the black Mercedes. Heading to the safehouse on Long Island as ordered. No followers.
May you like
I stared at the screen for a long, silent moment. Then, I walked over to the desk, picked up my heavy Montblanc pen—the one Boss Mia had clutched so fiercely just twenty minutes ago—and slipped it into my breast pocket.
The war for my soul was over. The war for my empire was just beginning. And this time, I wasn't playing by my father’s rules.
