Chapter 6 - THE ARCHITECT OF ASHES
The word hung in the damp air like toxic smoke.
Funeral.
Dante took one slow step forward.
His boots clicked against the oil-stained concrete.
"Lorenzo," Dante said, his voice trembling with a grief he had buried for nearly a decade.
"I stood over your coffin."
"I lowered you into the earth with my own hands."
"You lowered an empty box, Dante," Lorenzo spat.
He dragged his iron-braced leg across the floor with a harsh metallic scrape.
"You buried thirty pounds of lead shot and a dental record Richard Whitmore bought for ten thousand dollars."
Elena stepped up beside Dante.
Her eyes were fixed on her mother.
Clara Morales lifted her head weakly.
Her swollen eyes found Elena’s face.
"Elena..." Clara wheezed through cracked lips.
"Go... baby, run..."
"Shut up, old woman," Vanessa snapped, stepping forward and driving the heel of her boot into Clara’s shin.
Elena’s hand moved inside Dante’s oversized coat.
Her fingers clamped around the checkered grip of the .38 revolver.
"Touch her again, Vanessa," Elena said, her voice dropping into a deadly register.
"And you won't leave this pier alive."
Vanessa gave a shrill, mocking laugh.
"Look at the little servant girl barking like a dog!"
"You think you're special because Dante looked at you?"
"You're nothing!"
"Your mother was a midnight nurse who asked too many questions seven years ago!"
Richard Whitmore raised his hand to quiet his daughter.
He looked at Dante with cold, calculating condescension.
"Lorenzo was reckless, Dante," Richard said smoothly.
"Seven years ago, your father wanted to hand the Moretti empire to him."
"Not to you."
"Your father thought Lorenzo had the vision to take the syndicate into global logistics."
"So you staged the ambush in Detroit," Dante said.
His voice was terrifyingly calm now.
The grief in his eyes had hardened into black obsidian.
"I didn't stage it alone," Richard smiled.
He gestured with his gold pistol toward Lorenzo.
"Your brother helped me plan it."
Dante stopped moving.
The world seemed to lose all sound.
"What did you say?" Dante whispered.
Lorenzo let out a ragged, hacking cough.
He looked at his older brother with raw, venomous hatred.
"You were always the favorite, Dante!" Lorenzo yelled, saliva spraying from his lips.
"Father gave you the council seats!"
"He gave you the respect of the Five Families!"
"Richard offered me half the city's port authority if I helped him wipe out Father's inner circle!"
"We were going to split the empire!"
"Then why are you in chains, Lorenzo?" Elena asked suddenly.
Her clear voice cut through the brothers' tragedy.
Lorenzo blinked, his mouth working silently.
"Look at your leg," Elena said, pointing at the rusted calipers.
"Look at your clothes."
"You helped Richard murder your father, and what did he do to you?"
"He locked you in an underground clinic for seven years," Elena continued, taking a step toward the pillar.
"My mother was the nurse who cleaned your bedsores."
"She was the one who smuggled you food when Richard's doctors tried to starve you into signing over your trust fund."
"That's why my mother is here tonight."
Elena turned her fierce, burning gaze onto Richard Whitmore.
"Because Lorenzo's trust fund requires dual authorization."
"Dante's signature... and the key from the music box."
Richard’s aristocratic smirk vanished.
His jaw tightened in sudden, violent anger.
"You're remarkably perceptive for a maid, Miss Morales," Richard hissed.
He cocked the hammer of his gold pistol.
"Give me the silver key, Dante."
"Or I put a bullet through Clara's temple."
"Then I put a bullet through your brother's head."
"And finally, I let my daughter teach Miss Morales her proper place."
Dante didn't reach into his pocket.
He looked past Richard toward the corrugated iron rafters eighty feet above.
He gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
May you like
"Marcus," Dante whispered into his collar mic.
"Take the lights."
