Chapter 10 - THE MISSING FIFTY MILLION
I stared blindly down the long, shadowed hallway of my penthouse, the phone pressed tightly to my ear.
“Say that again,” I commanded, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“Fifty million, Boss,” Dante repeated over the encrypted line, his tone laced with absolute dread. “The transfer was executed three days ago. It routed through six shell companies in the Caymans before vanishing into a blind trust.”
“Victor is dead. Silvio is dead,” I said, my mind racing through the impossibilities. “The only copy of that ledger was the micro-SD card we recovered from Lily’s bracelet. How could anyone else authorize a transfer?”
“There had to be a backdoor,” Dante suggested. “Victor was paranoid, but he wasn't tech-savvy. Someone built that encrypted ledger for him. Someone who kept a master key for themselves.”
I closed my eyes, the exhaustion of the past three weeks suddenly crashing down on me. I had burned the city to the ground to buy peace for Clara and Lily. I had adopted my niece. I had thought we were finally safe.
“Who built the system, Dante?”
“That’s the problem, Dominic. We dug into the transaction signatures. The code architecture matches the cyber-security firm owned by the Rossi family.”
My blood ran ice cold.
The Rossi family.
They weren't just a rival syndicate. They were the head of the Commission. Don Rossi was a ruthless, eighty-year-old ghost who controlled the entire East Coast from a fortified compound in New Jersey. If Rossi had Victor’s money, it meant Rossi knew everything.
“If Rossi has the money, he has the blackmail files too,” I said, my chest tightening. “He has the videos of my father ordering Julian’s murder. If he releases them, the entire Moretti family structure will collapse. The capos will rebel.”
“He doesn't want to destroy the family, Boss,” Dante said grimly. “He wants to absorb it. A courier just dropped an envelope at the front desk of our midtown casino. It’s addressed to you.”
“I’m on my way.”
I hung up the phone.
I walked back into the living room. Clara was sitting on the couch, reading a book under a warm lamp. She looked up, her soft hazel eyes immediately registering the tension radiating from my shoulders.
“Dominic? What’s wrong?” she asked, setting the book down.
“I have to go out,” I said, grabbing my heavy wool coat and checking the magazine in my .45. “A business problem.”
Clara stood up, walking over to me. She didn't press for details. She just placed her hands on my chest, looking up at me with fierce loyalty.
“Come back to us,” she whispered.
I kissed her forehead, breathing in the scent of vanilla and home. “I always will.”
Thirty minutes later, I walked into the private back room of the Moretti Casino.
Dante handed me a thick, black envelope sealed with red wax. The Rossi family crest—a coiled snake—was stamped into the wax.
I broke the seal and pulled out a single sheet of heavy parchment.
Dominic,
Your father was a wise man who knew his place beneath the Commission. You are a reckless boy who blew up Brooklyn.
I have the ledger. I have the fifty million. And I have the video of Joseph.
Step down as Don of the Moretti family. Surrender your ports and your casinos to my captains by midnight tomorrow. If you refuse, I release the video, and I send my men to finish what Victor started with your little ballerina.
Do not test me.Don Rossi
I crushed the heavy parchment in my fist.
He was threatening Lily. He was threatening Clara.
“What do we do, Boss?” Dante asked, watching the lethal fury build in my eyes. “Rossi has three hundred made men. We can't fight the entire Commission. If we go to war with Rossi, we’ll be slaughtered.”
“We’re not going to war,” I said coldly.
Dante frowned. “You’re going to step down? Give him the empire?”
“My father sold his soul to keep this empire. It’s poison,” I said, dropping the crushed letter onto the poker table. “But I’m not handing it to Rossi. I’m going to cut the head off the snake.”
“Boss, Rossi’s compound is impenetrable. It sits on fifty acres in New Jersey, surrounded by private military contractors. You can't just walk in.”
“I’m not going to walk in,” I said, a dangerous, suicidal plan forming in my mind. “I’m going to make him invite me.”
I looked at Dante. “Bring me the surviving Falcone captains. The ones we captured during the club raids last week. The ones sitting in our basement.”
Dante’s eyes widened. “The prisoners? Why?”
“Because Rossi thinks he holds all the cards. But he doesn't know what Julian actually stole five years ago.”
I walked to the casino vault and unlocked a small, hidden lockbox.
Inside was a faded, leather-bound journal. I had found it in Julian’s apartment the day after he died, but I had never been able to read it. It was written in a complex cipher.
But last week, while reviewing Victor’s decrypted files, my tech guys found the translation key.
Julian hadn't just stolen Victor’s bribery ledger.
May you like
Julian had documented the location of the Commission’s physical cash reserves. The vault where Don Rossi kept half a billion dollars in untraceable cartel money.
“Get the cars ready,” I told Dante, tucking the journal into my coat. “We’re going to New Jersey. And we’re bringing a gift.”
