Chapter 5 - An Interrogation in the Cellar
The color drained from Valentina’s face with such violent speed that she looked like a corpse beneath the chandelier. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Don Silvio’s eyes narrowed into slits. He slammed his beefy palm onto the table, shaking the silverware. "Luca! What is the meaning of this disrespect? Are you accusing my daughter of lying over a piece of costume jewelry?"
"Costume jewelry?" Luca turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto Silvio with the weight of an oncoming freight train. "Your daughter used that ring as a pretext to have two of your enforcers beat an innocent girl half to death, strip her of her coat, and lock her outside in a negative-twenty-degree blizzard behind a chained industrial door."
A low murmur broke out among the lesser capos sitting along the perimeter. Even in the brutal, merciless world of the syndicate, there were rules. You killed your enemies. You broke the men who betrayed you. But you did not torture defenseless household staff in another man's home on Christmas Eve without cause. It was an insult to the host. It was a violation of hospitality that bordered on madness.
"She is just a maid!" Valentina shrieked, her mask of composure completely disintegrating into hysterical rage. "She is a nobody! A gutter rat my father bought for pocket change! Who cares if she froze in the snow? I am your future wife! I am the daughter of Silvio Ricci! You belong to me, Luca, and I won't have you looking at a pathetic servant girl while I sit at your table!"
Silvio winced. The girl had said too much, her venom revealing the raw, ugly jealousy that drove her actions.
Luca did not raise his voice. He took a single step back and gestured toward the archway.
The double doors swung open. Two of Luca’s men dragged two bloody, battered men into the dining hall, tossing them onto the polished marble like sacks of flour. They were Valentina’s personal security guards—the two enforcers she had brought from the Ricci compound in Brooklyn. Both men were bruised, their wrists zip-tied behind their backs, their faces swollen from an immediate, ruthless interrogation in the basement.
"Tell the Don what you told me," Luca commanded without looking at them.
The larger guard coughed up blood onto the floor, trembling violently as he looked at Luca’s feet. "Miss Ricci... she ordered us to do it. She told us to rough the girl up, break her fingers so she couldn't pick the locks, and chain the exterior emergency latch. She said... she said to make sure she was frozen solid before the main course was finished so nobody could save her."
A cold wind seemed to sweep through the room, though the doors were shut tight.
Silvio stood up slowly, reaching for the inside pocket of his coat. "Luca, this is an internal family matter. My daughter was impulsive. She was emotional. We can discipline the guards, settle the girl’s medical bills, and—"
Before Silvio’s hand could clear his lapel, five laser sights snapped onto the center of his chest.
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Around the room, twenty Ferretti soldiers stepped forward from the shadows, their automatic weapons leveled directly at the Ricci contingent. The clicking of safeties being disengaged echoed in the silence like bone snapping.
"Sit down, Silvio," Luca said softly. "Before I paint these walls with your retirement."
