Chapter 10 - the blood brother
The parlor fell into a dead silence, broken only by the crackle of the fireplace and the drumming rain outside.
Victor looked down the barrel of the assault rifle, then up into the eyes of the man who had driven his car, guarded his back, and shared his table for a decade.
"Luca," Victor said softly.
Luca’s hands were steady, his weathered face showing no emotion. "Don't move, Boss. Don't reach for the jacket."
"You're Salvatore’s son?" Victor asked, his voice steady despite the seismic shift beneath his feet. "You grew up in the South Bronx. Your father was a dockworker."
"My foster father was a dockworker," Luca corrected quietly. "Paid two thousand dollars a month by Salvatore’s private accountants to keep me fed and keep his mouth shut. When I turned twenty, Salvatore brought me into the crew. Not as a made man. As a driver. So I could watch you. So I could learn how a Boss breathes, how a Boss bleeds, and how a Boss falls."
Victor took a slow, calculated step forward. "And Celeste?"
"Celeste approached me three years ago," Luca said, keeping the barrel trained on Victor’s chest. "She found the adoption papers in Salvatore's private safe. She offered me a deal: she would lock Adriana away so Adriana couldn't tell you the truth, and in exchange, when the time was right, she would trigger the federal investigation, strip you of your legal standing, and hand the Bellandi throne to me."
"And you believed her?" Victor said, a faint, cold smirk touching his lips. "You really thought a woman who betrayed me wouldn't put a bullet in the back of your head the second the papers were signed?"
"I'm not a fool, Victor," Luca replied. "I never trusted her. That’s why I kept Adriana alive."
Victor stopped. His eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"
"Celeste ordered Adriana executed thirty-six months ago," Luca said, his voice dropping. "She told me to take her out to the pine barrens and bury her. I couldn't do it. She’s my half-sister. We share the same father. So I built that room under the library floorboards. I fed her. I gave her blankets. I waited until you were strong enough to dismantle Celeste’s political backing."
Falcone sat up in his chair, suddenly alarmed. "Luca, what are you talking about? Shoot him! The Commission is backing you! You take the oath tonight!"
Luca didn't look at Falcone. Without shifting his stance, he smoothly rotated the barrel of the rifle forty-five degrees to the right and fired a single, deafening shot.
The bullet tore straight through Don Falcone’s crystal brandy snifter, shattering it into a thousand glittering pieces and embedding itself in the mahogany wall an inch from the old man's ear.
Falcone shrieked, falling off his chair onto his hands and knees, trembling violently.
"Shut up, old man," Luca snapped. Then he lowered the rifle, clicked the safety on, and looked back at Victor. "I don't want the throne, Victor. I never did. Salvatore abandoned my mother to die in a public ward while he built this glass castle. I don't care about the Bellandi name."
"Then what do you want, Luca?" Victor asked, his voice steady.
Luca reached into his tactical vest and pulled out a keycard stamped with a red corporate logo.
May you like
"I want our mother's freedom," Luca said. "Because Celeste doesn't have Helena in a sanatorium in Geneva. She has her locked in an offshore container terminal right here in the Boston harbor. And the ship sails at four in the morning."
***
