Chapter 8 - The Price of Loyalty
Dominic stopped five feet from the mahogany table, his cold gray eyes boring into his terrified cousin. Paul was shaking uncontrollably, his designer suit soaked in sweat, his revolver wavering wildly in his trembling grip. ""Dominic... listen to me,"" Paul stuttered, his voice cracking like a terrified child's. ""It wasn't my idea! The syndicates from New York... they pressured me! They said if we didn't take your territory, they’d wipe out the entire Varrone family! I did this to protect the business! To protect our legacy!"" Dominic reached into his overcoat. Paul flinched, almost pulling the trigger out of sheer cowardice, but Dominic merely produced a thick, brown leather ledger—the master accounting book containing thirty years of off-the-books bribes, politician payoffs, and bank routes. He slammed it onto the mahogany table with a resounding thud that echoed like a gavel in a courtroom. ""Your private Swiss accounts were seized an hour ago, Paul,"" Dominic stated calmly. ""Walter Bell still has friends in federal intelligence. Every dollar you stole from the union pension fund has been frozen. Every crooked cop on your payroll has been arrested by state authorities in Camden. You are broke, friendless, and completely naked."" Paul realized the trap had reversed. In a desperate, psychotic panic, he raised his gun to shoot Dominic point-blank. But Dominic was faster than thought. In one explosive motion, Dominic stepped inside the line of fire, grabbed Paul's wrist, twisted the joint until bone snapped with an audible pop, and drove Paul's face into the solid mahogany table. The gun clattered uselessly onto the floor. Dominic leaned over his whimpering, broken cousin, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper. ""You broke the only rule that mattered, Paul. You went after a grandmother and a four-year-old child. You sent killers to hunt an innocent family."" Dominic dragged Paul by his expensive collar toward the edge of the loading dock, where the dark, freezing waters of the Delaware River churned below the rusty pylons. Paul sobbed hysterically, begging for mercy, clutching at Dominic's coat with his unbroken hand. ""Please, Dominic! We're blood! Rose raised us both! Don't do this!"" Dominic stopped at the water's edge, staring down into the black abyss. ""Rose raised a man. She didn't raise a rat. But I'm not going to kill you, Paul. Death is too quick, too clean for what you did."" Dominic tossed Paul onto the wet timber of the pier. Behind him, two unmarked federal sedans rolled into the warehouse with blue strobe lights flashing silently. Agents stepped out, led by Walter Bell’s old associates, carrying federal arrest warrants for racketeering, attempted murder, and corporate treason. ""You're going to spend the next forty years in a federal penitentiary in Colorado,"" Dominic told Paul coldly. ""And every single day, you will remember that you lost an entire empire because a four-year-old girl in a red dress saw your picture on a cheap phone.""
