Chapter 4 - The Unmasking
Salvatore paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. His pale, rheumy eyes flickered with a predator’s sharp instinct, assessing my expression, the slight tension in my jaw, the unnatural stillness of my hands on the glass table.
"Memories?" Salvatore chuckled softly, setting his drink down with a delicate clink. "Old memories are like bad debts, Adrian. You don't go looking for them unless you want to lose sleep. What brought this on?"
"A little girl," I said, leaning forward and resting my forearms on the table. "She was running through the gardens this afternoon. Found her way behind the old gardener's shed near the hedge. You remember that shed, don't you, Salvatore? My father built it the summer before I was born."
The color didn't drain from Salvatore's face immediately. He was too seasoned, too practiced in the art of bloodshed and deceit to give himself away with an amateur flinch. But I saw the microscopic tightening of his pupils, the sudden shallow rise of his silk-clad chest.
"Kids will be kids," Salvatore said casually, though his tone had hardened by a fraction of a degree. "They crawl into places they shouldn't. You should tell your groundskeepers to tear that old fire hazard down."
"I might," I replied. "Right after I finish reading the three letters my mother hid behind the wall inside a dark walnut box."
The terrace went dead quiet. The only sound was the torrential rain smashing against the glass ceiling above us, like thousands of tiny bullets trying to break through.
Salvatore’s hand slowly drifted toward the left lapel of his tailored coat.
"I wouldn't," I said softly, resting my right hand casually against the edge of the table. "Viktor has three snipers positioned in the weeping willows behind you. If your hand moves another two inches inside that jacket, you won't live long enough to hear the gunshot."
Salvatore froze. Slowly, methodically, he brought his hand back out and placed both palms flat on the table. The grandfatherly warmth on his face melted away, replaced by the cold, hollow, merciless visage of the executioner who had ruled this city's underworld from the shadows for four decades.
"You were nine years old, Adrian," Salvatore murmured, his voice dropping into a raspy, gravelly whisper. "You didn't understand how the world worked. Your father was weak. He was blinded by love for a woman who was going to send us all to federal prison. Clara had the names. She had the bank accounts. She was going to destroy everything we spent twenty years building from the gutter."
"So you broke her neck," I stated, my voice devoid of emotion, hollowed out by pure hatred. "You threw her down the stairs, made it look like she slipped in a drunken stupor, and let a nine-year-old boy believe his mother hated him enough to drink herself to death."
"I did what had to be done to protect the family!" Salvatore hissed, his eyes flashing with sudden venom. "Your father knew! He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he knew in his gut that Clara had to be silenced! I saved this empire! I saved you! Who do you think kept the rival syndicates from butchering you in your crib after your old man got sick? It was me! I raised you! I made you the king of this city!"
"You made me a weapon," I snarled, rising from my seat, towering over the old man like an avenging demon. "You made me cold, paranoid, and miserable so that you could pull my strings from behind the curtain! You kept safety deposit box 418 at First Commonwealth Bank with wiretaps as leverage against my father, just waiting for the day you could swallow our holdings whole!"
At the mention of box 418, Salvatore’s composure shattered completely. His gaze dropped down to the emerald serpent ring on his right pinky finger.
"Marcus Vance," Salvatore spat, realization dawning on him like a toxic fog. "The driver... that coward had a daughter, didn't he? The maid. The little brat with the dirty shoes. You let a gutter rat bring down forty years of empire?!"
"That little brat," I whispered, pulling my .45 from beneath my jacket and pressing the cold steel barrel directly against Salvatore's forehead, "has more honor in her little finger than you've had in your entire wretched life."
Salvatore stared up at me through the sight of the barrel, his chest heaving. "Go ahead then, boy. Shoot me. Pull the trigger. My captains will turn this estate into a slaughterhouse by nightfall. You won't survive a week without me."
"I don't need to shoot you, Salvatore," I said, a dark, victorious smile spreading across my lips. "I don't need to make you a martyr."
I signaled with two fingers toward the corridor.
The heavy glass doors burst open. Standing there wasn't my security team—it was Special Agent Miller from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, backed by eight tactical agents in full body armor, their rifles raised, red laser dots painting Salvatore's chest like crimson ornaments.
"Salvatore Kane," Agent Miller announced, flashing his gold badge. "You are under arrest for federal racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder, and the 1995 homicide of Clara Voss. We opened safety deposit box 418 twenty minutes ago with a federal warrant based on evidence provided by Mr. Voss."
Salvatore looked at the feds, then looked back up at me, his mouth opening and closing in soundless, agonizing defeat.
May you like
I reached down, took his trembling right hand, and twisted the emerald serpent ring off his pinky finger, dropping it into my suit pocket.
"Take him away," I told the agents. "And make sure the cell has a good view of the rain."
