Chapter 5 - The Trial in the Rain
The grand courtyard of the Moretti estate became an open-air courtroom under the pouring sky.
Floodlights snapped on, illuminating the slick grey stones and turning the falling rain into sheets of liquid silver.
Twenty men in dark tailored suits stood in a circle.
These were the family leaders—the hardened veterans who controlled the docks, the real estate, the banks, and the shadows of northern Italy.
In the center of the circle lay Marco, dragged down the stairs by two burly guards and thrown onto the wet stones at Matteo’s feet.
Next to him stood Bianca, her expensive designer dress soaked and ruined, her face pale with absolute terror as two guards held her arms behind her back.
I stood near the edge of the courtyard, wrapped in Matteo’s heavy coat, holding Lily tightly.
One of Matteo’s personal doctors was attending to the cuts on my feet, but I couldn't feel the pain.
My eyes were glued to the center of the yard.
Matteo stood over Marco like an ancient judge.
“You thought I was blind, Marco,” Matteo spoke, his voice carrying clearly despite the storm. “You thought because we grew up together, because our mothers prayed in the same church, I wouldn't notice the offshore accounts created under Julian’s name three years ago.”
Marco spat blood onto the floor. “Julian was weak! Just like his wife! He found the ledger and wanted to give it to the police! He was going to destroy us all!”
“Julian was an honest man,” Matteo countered fiercely. “And you murdered him!”
The word hung heavy in the rain-soaked air.
I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth.
He murdered Julian.
It wasn't a hit-and-run by a stranger.
It was Marco.
Marco had run my husband down in the dark three years ago to stop him from exposing the syndicate.
Tears burned my eyes, hot against the cold rain on my face.
All those years of grief, of struggling alone, of wondering why my husband was taken from us... it was all sitting right there in front of me, bleeding on the stone.
“And Bianca?” Matteo turned his razor-sharp gaze toward his fiancée.
Bianca fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically. “Matteo, please! He promised me! Marco promised he would make me the head of the syndicate’s charity foundation if I helped him frame the maid! He said she was a threat! He said you were falling in love with her!”
The courtyard went dead silent.
The word love rang out louder than the thunder above.
Matteo didn't flinch.
He didn't look back at me, but his hand tightened slightly on his cane.
“You brought disharmony into my house,” Matteo told Bianca coldly. “You struck an innocent child. You conspired with a traitor to murder a mother inside these walls. Your family’s alliance with mine is terminated tonight.”
He turned to the head of the elder council, an old man named Don Carmine.
“Carmine,” Matteo said. “Take Bianca back to her family in Florence. Tell her father that if she ever sets foot in Milan again, the alliance will not just be broken—it will become a war.”
Carmine bowed his head gravely. “It will be done, Don Matteo.”
Two guards dragged the screaming, sobbing woman away into the darkness of the driveway.
Then Matteo turned back down to Marco.
“As for you,” Matteo whispered.
Marco looked up, seeing no mercy in the eyes of the man he had betrayed.
“You killed an innocent mechanic,” Matteo said softly. “You tried to murder his widow. You threatened a three-year-old child. You broke every law of honor this house was built upon.”
Matteo drew a single silver pistol from his belt.
He didn't hand Marco over to the guards.
He didn't wait for a vote.
He raised the weapon and aimed it directly at Marco’s chest.
“Matteo... please... we were brothers—” Marco begged, his confidence completely collapsing.
“Brothers don't hunt children,” Matteo said.
May you like
BANG.
The gunshot echoed across the estate, ending the traitor’s life before he hit the wet stones.
