Chapter 7 - THE CONFESSION
The dining room went dead silent.
Through the crack in the heavy wooden door, I could see the reflection of the standoff in the ornate mirror above the fireplace.
Vanessa stood at the head of the long table, the red silk of her gown stark against the dark wood. She was holding a silver, pearl-handled revolver, aimed directly at Matteo’s chest.
Matteo didn’t look afraid. He looked annoyed.
“Put the gun down, Vanessa. You’re embarrassing yourself in front of the capos.”
The five older men sitting around the table looked bewildered, unsure of whose side to take. The transition of power was turning into a bloodbath before it even began.
“She’s telling the truth!” Vanessa yelled to the capos. “Matteo murdered Don Carmine! He wanted to frame Luca so he could take over without a war. Marcus helped him!”
Marcus stepped out from the shadows near the doorway, drawing his own heavy sidearm. He aimed it squarely at Vanessa’s head.
“Drop it, Miss Bellini. Final warning.”
It was a stalemate. If Vanessa pulled the trigger, Marcus would kill her a second later.
Luca released my hand.
He pushed the wooden door open and stepped out of the shadows.
“Nobody is shooting anyone.”
Luca’s voice wasn’t loud, but it hit the room like a thunderclap.
Every head snapped toward him.
Matteo’s arrogant smirk faltered, genuine shock flashing across his face.
Marcus quickly swung his gun away from Vanessa and leveled it at Luca.
“Luca,” Matteo recovered quickly, stepping behind the empty Don’s chair. “You have some nerve showing your face here.”
“Put the gun down, Marcus,” Luca ordered, completely ignoring his brother. He walked into the room, his hands empty, his posture radiating absolute authority.
“Can’t do that, boss,” Marcus grunted, keeping the sights trained on Luca’s chest. “You’re a liability to the family now.”
Luca didn’t stop walking until he was at the center of the room.
He reached into his pocket.
Marcus tensed, his finger tightening on the trigger.
But Luca didn’t pull out a gun.
He pulled out the heavy gold cufflink and tossed it onto the polished mahogany table.
It clattered loudly, coming to a stop near Matteo’s hand.
Marcus’s face went pale. He instinctively checked his left wrist.
The cufflink was missing.
“You left that in the bedroom of a six-year-old boy tonight, Marcus,” Luca said, his voice dripping with disgust. “When you broke into my maid’s apartment on my brother’s orders.”
The capos murmured among themselves, shifting uncomfortably in their chairs. Breaking into a civilian’s home to threaten a child broke every rule of the old code.
“Lies,” Matteo spat, picking up the cufflink. “He’s desperate. He killed the Don!”
Luca looked at the five capos. Men who had known him since he was a boy.
“My brother claims he was in New York all week. He claims he just arrived tonight to surprise me.”
Luca reached into his other pocket and pulled out the black smartphone. The one Vanessa had dropped in the pantry.
“This phone belongs to Matteo,” Luca said. “My security bypassed it tonight. It contains a photograph of Vanessa opening my safe at 3:09 this afternoon. Taken by Matteo.”
Matteo’s face tightened. He looked at Marcus. The silent order was given.
Kill him now.
But before Marcus could pull the trigger, I stepped out of the doorway.
I walked into the room, my bandaged right wrist pressed against my stomach.
“That’s not the only thing he recorded today,” I said.
Every eye in the room turned to the maid.
Matteo glared at me with pure venom.
I walked up to the table, reached into my jeans pocket with my good hand, and pulled out my own cheap, cracked cell phone.
When Vanessa had cornered me in the pantry, before she tied my wrist, I had recognized the danger. I had secretly hit the record button on my phone and slid it behind a bag of flour on the shelf.
I placed the phone on the table.
I hit play.
The audio was perfectly clear.
It wasn’t the conversation between Vanessa and me.
It was the conversation that happened after Vanessa left the pantry. When Matteo had slipped into the kitchen to check on his trap.
Matteo’s voice crackled from the speaker:
“Is the watch in the safe?”
Marcus’s voice replied:
“Yes. Vanessa planted it. The New York crew will be here by midnight.”
Matteo laughed softly.
“Good. When they find it, shoot Luca in the back of the head. Tell the capos he resisted. Carmine’s blood will be on Luca’s hands, and I’ll be sitting in the big chair by morning.”
The recording ended.
The silence in the dining room was absolute and terrifying.
The five capos slowly stood up from their chairs.
They didn’t look at Luca.
They looked at Matteo. And the look in their eyes was murder.
Matteo realized in a fraction of a second that he had lost everything.
He lunged for the silver pocket watch on the table, trying to grab it as leverage, a bargaining chip for New York.
At the exact same time, Marcus realized he was a dead man.
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He swung his gun toward Luca and pulled the trigger.
BANG.
