Chapter 9 - The Trigger and the Shield
The barrel of Salvatore’s revolver was locked directly on the center of my chest.
Time seemed to dilate, stretching into a thick, syrup-like eternity where every sound echoed with microscopic clarity.
I saw the light catch the polished metal of the gun.
I saw the old man’s finger tightening against the curved metal of the trigger.
I couldn't move.
My feet felt glued to the parquet floor, my right hand throbbing inside my coat pocket as the adrenaline turned my blood to ice.
I didn't scream.
There was no time to scream.
Before the hammer of the revolver could drop, Luca moved with the terrifying speed of a striking viper.
He didn't draw his gun.
He lunged across the corner of the mahogany table, his tall frame clearing the polished wood in a single, explosive bound.
He crashed directly into his father’s chest just as the gun went off.
CRACK!
The gunshot roared through the grand ballroom like a lightning strike, shattering the crystal chandelier directly above our heads.
A rain of glittering glass shards showered over the table.
Luca and Salvatore went down hard together, tumbling over the heavy oak chairs into a tangle of limbs and expensive wool.
The revolver skittered across the marble floor, spinning away into the shadows beneath the heavy velvet drapes.
“Get him!” Marcus roared, drawing his sidearm and leaping forward followed by three tactical operators.
Two enforcers belonging to Salvatore’s personal guard tried to draw their weapons from the back of the room, but Marcus’s men were already on them, driving the butts of their submachine guns into their collarbones and slamming them face-first onto the floor.
Vanessa screamed—a high, piercing shriek of absolute panic—and bolted toward the tall double doors.
She didn't make it two steps.
Marcus reached out, grabbed her by the lapel of her designer pantsuit, and threw her back against the mahogany table so hard that the heavy crystal water pitchers rattled and tipped over.
“You’re not going anywhere, Miss Bellini,” Marcus said coldly, shoving her down into a chair.
At the center of the room, Luca stood up slowly.
His tailored suit was dust-stained, his breathing heavy, a shallow scratch bleeding across his left cheekbone where he had hit the edge of a chair.
Beneath him, pinned flat against the floor with Luca’s knee planted firmly in the center of his chest, lay Salvatore Moretti.
The old Don was coughing, his silver hair disheveled, his ebony cane broken in half beside him.
His face was mottled with fury, but his eyes still burned with the unyielding malice of a tyrant who refused to die.
Luca looked down at his father.
He didn't pull a weapon.
He simply reached down, grabbed the lapels of his father’s tuxedo, and hauled the old man up to his feet, slamming him back against the mahogany wall beneath a portrait of the founding Moretti patriarchs.
“It’s over, Father,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
“Your war is finished.”
Salvatore spat a glob of blood onto the pristine white collar of his shirt.
He let out a harsh, rattling laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across pavement.
“You think you won, boy?” Salvatore wheezed, his old eyes glaring into his son's soul.
“You think the Commission will let a Boss who protects a foreign maid sit on this throne?”
“They will tear you apart within a week.”
Luca didn't raise his voice.
He looked back over his shoulder at the twelve capos sitting around the table.
Old Captain Rossi slowly stood up.
He looked at Salvatore, then down at the broken cane, and finally at the tiny microSD card still resting beside his water glass.
Rossi buttoned his suit jacket, picked up his cane, and walked slowly toward Luca.
He stopped three paces away, looked the young Boss in the eye, and gave a slow, respectful nod of his graying head.
“The recording is real,” Rossi said, his voice carrying clearly across the silent ballroom.
“The blood is real.”
“The betrayal is real.”
Rossi turned his head toward the old Don pinned against the wall.
“Forty years ago, Salvatore, you taught us that family is everything,” Rossi said coldly.
“You taught us that a man who betrays his own blood deserves no mercy.”
“You tried to murder your son over a ledger and a chair.”
Rossi turned back to Luca, raising his right hand in a formal gesture of absolute submission.
“The Moretti family follows the reigning Boss.”
One by one, the other eleven capos stood up from their chairs around the mahogany table.
Men who controlled millions of dollars in drugs, ports, and real estate looked at the young leader who had unmasked the rot within their house.
May you like
They all bowed their heads in unison.
The succession was complete.
