Chapter 9 - The Reckoning of Blood
Twenty-four hours later.
The rain had cleared, leaving the city washed clean beneath a cold, brilliant autumn sun. The high-rises along the Chicago riverfront gleamed like polished silver, showing no outward sign of the shadow war that had raged through the night.
Inside the penthouse suite of the Grand Palmer Hotel, the atmosphere was completely transformed.
Dr. Thorne had completed three full transfusions on Vincent, clearing the last traces of the synthetic peptide from his bloodstream. Vincent sat at the head of the long mahogany dining table, dressed in a fresh, pristine white dress shirt—its collar open, unadorned by any tie or jacket. His color had returned, and with it, the cold, lethal stillness that had kept him at the apex of the Chicago underworld for two decades.
Standing along the perimeter of the room were twenty of his most senior capos, their faces grim, their eyes fixed on the man tied to the chair at the far end of the room.
Luca.
His younger brother looked like a ghost. He had spent twenty-four hours in that chair, listening to the phone calls that chronicled the total, systematic destruction of the Valenti syndicate.
Marco Valenti was dead—his body found floating in the Calumet shipping canal at dawn.
Julian Rossi had been turned over to federal authorities along with twenty years of encrypted ledgers that implicated seven state politicians, effectively obliterating Valenti's political protection network overnight.
And now, only Luca remained.
"Vincent," Luca whispered, his voice cracked with dry dehydration. "Vincent, please... we shared a cradle. Mama made you swear on her deathbed that you would protect me."
Vincent didn't look at his brother. He was looking at a leather folder lying on the table before him.
"Mama also told me that a rotten branch must be pruned before it kills the tree," Vincent said quietly.
He raised his eyes.
"You didn't just try to kill me, Luca. You brought biological weapons into our city. You targeted a seven-year-old sick child because you were too cowardly to face me like a man. You sold our father's name for thirty percent of another man's scraps."
Vincent stood up.
He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Lake Michigan. He didn't draw a gun. He didn't give an execution order.
"Marco," Vincent said without turning around.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Put my brother on a commercial flight to Palermo. With two thousand dollars in his pocket. No passport, no credit cards, no name."
Luca gasped, his eyes widening in shock. "What...?"
"You wanted to run an empire, Luca," Vincent said, his voice echoing off the glass. "Now you can see how long you survive in the old country where nobody knows who you are, and where the Moretti name only carries the price of a traitor's bounty. If you ever set foot on American soil again... you will not reach the ground alive."
Two bodyguards cut the zip-ties, hauled Luca to his feet, and dragged the weeping, broken man out through the double doors, sealing them behind him forever.
Vincent took a slow, deep breath, feeling the cool, clean air fill his healed lungs.
May you like
"Bring them in," Vincent ordered.
***
