Chapter 8 - The Price of Loyalty
By three in the afternoon, the storm had passed, leaving behind a clear, freezing sky that reflected off the wet pavement of the Moretti estate.
The estate looked like a war zone. State police cruisers and unmarked federal vehicles filled the outer courtyard. Men in suits were hauling black evidence bags out of the basement, while paramedics tended to two of Dante’s loyal guards who had been wounded in the driveway firefight.
In the grand library, Dante sat behind his desk while a private doctor wrapped a thick white bandage around his upper left arm.
Clare sat across from him, sipping a cup of hot sweet tea that the trembling kitchen staff had prepared. Lily was fast asleep on the long velvet sofa near the fireplace, Nero stretched out across her feet like a dark, living shield.
The heavy library doors opened.
Two of Dante’s senior lieutenants walked in, dragging Marco Bellini between them.
Marco was bleeding from a deep cut above his right eye. His hands were bound behind his back with heavy plastic flex-cuffs. His designer suit was torn, covered in mud from the industrial docks where Dante’s team had intercepted his getaway car.
The room fell into an absolute, chilling silence.
Dante didn't look up immediately. He waited until the doctor finished tying off the bandage, then quietly buttoned his blood-stained cuff back over his wrist.
Only then did he raise his eyes to look at the man who had stood at his right hand for thirty years.
“Why, Marco?” Dante asked. No anger. No yelling. Just a cold, terrifying question.
Marco spat a mouthful of blood onto the Persian rug. He didn't hang his head. He stared straight into Dante’s eyes.
“Thirty years,” Marco rasped, his voice raw. “Thirty years I built this family with your father and you. And what do I get? A small percentage of the docks and a pat on the head while you spend millions buying legal real estate and talking to lawyers like you’re a politician.”
“I was building something that would survive,” Dante said softly. “Something that wouldn't end with us dying in a prison cell or an alleyway.”
“Genovese offered me half of Chicago,” Marco snarled. “He offered me respect. Real respect. Not this sanitized, corporate garbage you’ve turned us into.”
Dante shook his head slowly, a look of profound disappointment filling his dark eyes.
“Genovese used you, Marco,” Dante said. “The moment I was dead, he was going to kill you and take the docks for himself. You were never his partner. You were just the key to my front door.”
Marco’s face paled slightly, a flicker of doubt finally cutting through his rage.
Dante stood up from his desk. He walked over to Marco, stopping just inches from his former trusted lieutenant.
“Take him to the farm in Indiana,” Dante ordered his lieutenants quietly. “Let the federal prosecutor know we have a witness who wants to sign a full confession regarding the Genovese wiretap network.”
Marco’s eyes went wide with shock. “Federal prosecutors? You’re turning me over to the feds? You don't execute me?”
Dante looked at him with an icy detachment that was worse than death.
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“Dying in an estate cellar is a boss’s death, Marco,” Dante said softly. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, listening to the walls of a concrete cell.”
The guards dragged Marco out of the room. His frantic cursing echoed down the grand hallway until the heavy doors swung shut, cutting the noise off completely.
