Chapter 12 - THE SHADOW IN NEW YORK
The rain over Manhattan was relentless.
A private penthouse overlooking Central Park sat bathed in the glow of expensive amber lamps.
Franco Moretti was pouring a glass of twenty-year-old single malt scotch.
He was thirty-eight, sleek, with silver-threaded hair and the refined smile of an investment banker.
His phone buzzed on the glass coffee table.
He picked it up without checking the caller ID.
“Is it done?” Franco asked smoothly.
“Did Cavallo secure the North Shore?”
“Cavallo is dead, Franco.”
The voice on the other end was not his capo.
It was Dante.
Franco’s hand froze around the crystal tumbler.
The ice cubes clicked against the glass.
“Dante,” Franco whispered, recovering his polished veneer with astonishing speed.
“What a tragedy in Boston. I heard about Luca’s treason.”
“I was just preparing to fly up to offer my support.”
“Do not bother packing a bag, Franco,” Dante said.
The line was quiet except for the low hum of a luxury engine.
Franco walked to his floor-to-ceiling windows.
Down on Fifth Avenue, eighty floors below, three black Cadillac Escalades were pulling up to the private residential entrance.
“Dante... we need to discuss this like civilized men,” Franco said, his throat suddenly bone-dry.
“Civilized men do not aim sniper rifles at eight-year-old boys,” Dante replied.
“I had nothing to do with that! Luca went rogue!”
“Clare Bennett found the Cayman wire, Franco.”
A beat of absolute silence fell over the line.
“Who?” Franco spat.
“The woman who saved my son,” Dante answered.
“The woman who is now the chief financial auditor of the Moretti holdings.”
Franco backed away from the window, his breath turning ragged.
“You’re bluffing. My father would never let you touch me!”
“Your father signed the writ forty minutes ago, Franco.”
Dante’s voice held no hatred.
Only the cold, final certainty of an executioner swinging the axe.
“He told me to remind you of the third commandment of the family.”
“'Betray your brother, and you die without a name.'”
The private elevator doors of the penthouse chimed.
The heavy brushed-steel doors slid open.
Marco stepped into the foyer, followed by four men in dark suits carrying suppressed submachine guns.
Franco’s phone slipped from his fingers.
May you like
It cracked against the marble floor.
Outside, the thunder rolled over the Manhattan skyline, swallowing the sound of three suppressed rounds.
