Chapter 14 - The Viper's Last Communion
The federal detention wing of the regional medical center in Worcester was an oppressive maze of polished concrete, reinforced wire glass, and heavy magnetic doors that clanged shut like thunder.
The air smelled of industrial bleach, stale urine, and the faint, sweet decay of failing human organs.
Daniel stood in the darkened observation booth behind the one-way ballistic glass, Vance flanking him on his left, Agent Miller on his right.
Through the glass, I could see my own reflection: pale, resolute, dressed in a simple navy blazer and dark slacks, looking every bit the woman who had stared down a mob boss in an incubator suite.
I pushed open the heavy steel door of the interview room and stepped inside.
The room was small, eight feet by ten feet, containing only a bolted steel table and two metal chairs.
Sitting in the opposite chair, handcuffed by both wrists to heavy steel rings welded into the table frame, was Salvatore Bianchi.
The ferocious, swaggering enforcer who had held Michael by the hair in the mud was gone.
In his place was a withered, hollow-eyed husk of a man.
His skin was the color of yellow parchment, stretched tight over sunken cheekbones.
A clear dialysis line ran from beneath his orange prison jumpsuit into an intravenous port on his neck.
His right shoulder, shattered by Vance’s rifle bullet six months ago, was permanently frozen at an unnatural angle.
When the door clicked shut, Salvatore raised his rheumy, bloodshot eyes to look at me.
A faint, wheezing rattle escaped his chest as he smiled, revealing yellowed, decaying teeth.
"The brave little nurse," Salvatore whispered, his voice sounding like dry leaves scraping across concrete.
"You look different without a dying baby strapped to your ribs."
I sat down in the cold metal chair across from him, placing my hands flat on the steel surface.
"Let's skip the small talk, Salvatore," I said, my voice steady and entirely devoid of fear.
"You have twenty-four hours before your kidneys completely shut down.
Why did you ask for me?"
Salvatore leaned forward as far as the chains would allow, his gold signet ring missing from his scarred fingers, replaced by an inmate ID bracelet.
"Because you're the only person who doesn't understand the game you're playing, Rachel."
"I understand enough to know your boss is dying in ADX Florence, Camille is in a pauper's vault, and Daniel Russo is raising his son in the light."
Salvatore chuckled, a wet, choking sound that ended in a violent coughing fit.
"In the light?" he rasped, wiping blood-tinged saliva from his chin with the sleeve of his jumpsuit.
"You think Daniel Russo knows how to live in the light?
A wolf can wear a sweater, sweetheart, but his teeth are still designed to tear throats."
"If that was all you had to say, I'm walking out that door," I said, beginning to push back my chair.
"Wait!" Salvatore snapped, the sudden force in his voice making the steel chains rattle against the table.
He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering the meager dregs of his fading strength.
"The bonds," he muttered.
"Twenty-five million in bearer certificates.
Marco had them transferred to a vault in the basement of the Old Colony Trust building on State Street."
"Who holds the power of attorney on that box?" I demanded.
Salvatore opened his eyes, staring at me with a sickening mixture of pity and malice.
"Who do you think was managing Marco’s real estate assets on the East Coast for the last ten years, Rachel?
Who do you think arranged the safehouse where Camille’s hit squad was supposed to regroup after the extraction?"
A terrible, cold knot formed in my stomach.
"Give me a name, Salvatore."
"His name is Julian Russo," Salvatore whispered.
My breath hitched.
Behind the one-way glass, I could hear a muffled, violent thud as Daniel’s fist struck the observation window.
"Daniel's younger brother," I whispered, the room spinning around me.
"Daniel told me Julian died in an automobile accident in Rome eight years ago."
"Julian didn't die," Salvatore sneered, leaning closer.
"Julian was exiled.
Old man Russo found out Julian was skimming heroin shipments through the Boston harbor, so he staged a fiery car crash in Italy to protect the family name and cut him off from the succession."
Salvatore’s voice dropped to a sinister, breathless hiss.
"Marco kept Julian on a leash.
He set him up with plastic surgery, a forged identity, and put him in charge of the private maritime holding companies in Massachusetts.
Julian has been living three miles from Blackwood Cliff for six months, Rachel.
He was the one who scouted the property for Daniel.
He was the one who made sure Daniel bought that isolated cliffside fortress."
The realization crashed over me with the force of an avalanche.
The estate hadn't been a sanctuary.
It had been a slaughterhouse waiting for the signal.
"Why tell me now?" I asked, my voice barely audible through the roaring in my ears.
"Because Marco is dead to me," Salvatore wheezed, his eyes rolling back slightly as his blood pressure plummeted.
"Julian refused to wire the pension funds to my sister in Palermo.
He kept the entire twenty-five million for himself.
He’s going to move on Blackwood Cliff tonight, Rachel.
He knows Daniel let his guard down.
He knows the local police are twenty minutes away.
He’s coming to slaughter Daniel, take the child, and claim the Russo restoration by morning."
Salvatore collapsed forward against the steel table, his forehead resting against the cold metal, his breath turning into shallow, deathly gasps.
"Tell Daniel... the serpent didn't die in the grass..." Salvatore choked out, his fingers twitching against the iron rings.
"It was waiting in the nursery..."
The interview room door was violently kicked open.
Daniel stood in the doorway, his face pale with a lethal, absolute fury that surpassed anything I had witnessed in Suite A.
He grabbed me by the arm, hauling me out into the corridor with unstoppable velocity.
"Vance!" Daniel roared down the echoing hallway, his voice shaking the concrete ceiling.
"Call Blackwood Cliff right now!
Lock down the nursery!
Scramble the tactical team!"
Vance ran alongside us, his satellite phone pressed frantically to his ear.
May you like
"Boss... the line is dead!" Vance shouted through the corridor.
"The fiber-optic cables to Blackwood Cliff were severed sixty seconds ago!"
