Chapter 3 - The Toast
Twenty minutes later, the heavy oak doors of the library swung open with a quiet, oiled click.
Vincent Moretti stepped inside, shaking a light autumn drizzle from the shoulders of his charcoal overcoat. He was a tall, impeccably groomed man in his early forties, with sharp, intelligent brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses and a permanent, reassuring smile that had charmed judges, politicians, and hostile capos alike for over a decade.
“Lorenzo,” Vincent greeted warmly, extending a hand as he walked across the Persian rug. “I’m glad you’re finally stepping back into the office. The New Jersey port contracts are up for renewal next week, and the commissioners are starting to get nervous without your signature.”
Lorenzo did not take Vincent’s outstretched hand immediately. He stood by the window, watching the rain trace winding paths down the glass, his hands resting casually inside his trouser pockets.
Vincent let his hand drop, a slight, practiced flicker of concern crossing his features. “Still mourning, I understand. But Isabella would have wanted you to keep moving forward, Lorenzo. We all miss her.”
“Do we?” Lorenzo turned around.
The tone of his voice was so flat, so utterly devoid of cadence, that Vincent stopped dead in his tracks three feet from the desk.
“Excuse me?” Vincent chuckled nervously, adjusting his glasses. “What kind of question is that? Of course we do. She was a remarkable woman.”
“She was,” Lorenzo agreed softly. He walked toward the desk, picking up a heavy crystal decanter filled with twenty-year-old amber scotch. He poured two glasses, sliding one across the polished walnut surface toward Vincent. “Drink with me, Vincent. It’s been too long since we shared a glass in this room.”
Vincent hesitated. His sharp eyes darted across Lorenzo’s face, searching for the familiar weariness of grief, but found only an impenetrable wall of slate-gray steel.
Slowly, Vincent picked up the crystal glass. “To new beginnings, then. And to getting the Duca empire back on stable footing.”
“To new beginnings,” Lorenzo echoed, raising his own glass.
They didn't clink the crystal together. They simply drank in unison. The rich, smoky liquor burned down Lorenzo’s throat, but it did nothing to cool the fire raging in his veins.
Vincent set his glass down on the edge of the desk, letting out a satisfied breath. “Now, regarding the Jersey ports—’
“Tell me about Chicago, Vincent,” Lorenzo interrupted, leaning back against the mahogany edge of the desk.
Vincent blinked, a momentary flicker of confusion passing behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Chicago? I told you, the banking summit went well. We secured the credit lines for the new warehouse development in Cicero without a hitch.”
“Did you?” Lorenzo reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a single sheet of paper—a bank printout bearing the Cayman Islands routing numbers—and laid it face up on the polished wood between them. “Because when I look at my financial ledgers from eight months ago, I see a very interesting transaction executed during your trip. Five hundred thousand dollars transferred to a state trooper named Robert Vance in upstate New York.”
The color drained from Vincent’s face as fast as ink dissolving in water.
The reassuring smile vanished entirely, replaced by a rigid, hunted panic. His hand twitched toward his coat pocket, but before his fingers could even graze the holster of his concealed firearm, the heavy oak doors behind him clicked open again.
Marco Ricci stepped into the room, flanked by two armed enforcers. The doors locked firmly behind them.
Vincent swallowed hard, his throat dry as bone. He looked from Marco back to Lorenzo, realizing instantly that the trap had been sprung long before he walked through the door.
“Lorenzo... I can explain,” Vincent stammered, his voice losing its polished composure. “That money... it was an extortion payment. Some rogue cops down in Albany found out about our secondary logistics channels and tried to blackmail us. I handled it quietly to protect the family name!”
Lorenzo didn't raise his voice. He didn't yell. He simply walked around the desk, stopping two feet away from his most trusted advisor of fifteen years.
“You handled it,” Lorenzo repeated softly.
“Yes! To protect you!” Vincent insisted, his voice rising in desperate pitch. “You were drowning in grief after the accident. You weren't paying attention to the outer rings of the organization. I had to make hard decisions to keep the syndicate from collapsing!”
“The accident,” Lorenzo said, the word tasting like copper on his tongue.
“Yes! The tragic crash on Route 9!” Vincent pressed on, playing his final, desperate card. “Isabella and the baby... it broke all of us, Lorenzo! But we survived. We have to keep looking forward!”
Lorenzo reached out, his hand closing around the lapel of Vincent’s expensive Italian suit. With a sudden, terrifying burst of raw, controlled strength, Lorenzo jerked Vincent forward, slamming him hard against the dark wood of the bookcases lining the wall. Books tumbled from the shelves, scattering across the Persian rug like dead leaves.
“The baby didn't die, Vincent,” Lorenzo whispered directly into the other man’s ear. cien degrees colder than death.
Vincent froze. Every drop of blood vanished from his skin. His eyes bulged behind his glasses as he stared into the dead, unblinking eyes of the Silent Don.
“What... what did you say?” Vincent choked out.
“Sophia is upstairs,” Lorenzo said, his voice a low, vibrating growl. “In the nursery. Sleeping in the crib I bought her. The car seat was thrown clear of the ravine before you scored the hydraulic steering lines with your industrial cutter.”
Vincent’s knees buckled. If Marco hadn't grabbed him by the collar, he would have collapsed onto the floor.
“You... you found her,” Vincent whispered, the confession slipping out before his brain could stop it.
“I found her,” Lorenzo confirmed. He released his grip, stepping back and wiping his hands with a white handkerchief as though he had just touched something foul. He looked at Vincent with a disgust so absolute it was biblical.
“You traded my family’s blood for a seat at the table,” Lorenzo said, turning his back on his former advisor. “You thought with Isabella and the child gone, you could slowly bleed the Duca empire dry while I sat in the dark rotting away.”
Lorenzo raised his hand slightly.
“Marco,” the Don commanded quietly.
“Boss?”
“Take him down to the reinforced basement holds. Do not kill him yet.” Lorenzo paused, his slate-gray eyes fixing on the blue paper swallow resting on his desk. “Let him spend a few days in the dark, wondering when the bill is going to arrive. Because unlike the state police report he paid for... my judgment cannot be bought off.”
As Vincent was dragged screaming and thrashing out of the library, the heavy doors closed once more, plunging the room back into silence.
Lorenzo walked slowly to the window. The rain had stopped, and a pale evening sun was breaking through the clouds over Long Island.
May you like
He reached into his pocket, pulled out Isabella’s gold watch, and flipped open the cover. The ticking mechanism was steady, unbroken, and alive.
The Duca family was whole again. And the war to protect them had only just begun.
