Chapter 7 - Blood and Betrayal
"You used father's gun," Salvatore said, walking slowly into the office, his arms lowered at his sides, completely unfazed by the weapon pointed at his chest. "Our father gave you that pistol to protect our family, Carmine. And you used it to put a hollow-point bullet through my face."
"You were choking this family to death!" Carmine shouted, his voice cracking hysterically. "Our father was old-fashioned, and you were worse! You wanted to go legitimate! You wanted to pull out of the harbor drugs, clean up the shipping lines, buy real estate, play the respectable businessman! There were hundreds of millions on the table, and you were locking us out!"
"So you took twenty million in dirty cartel payoffs and tried to murder your own flesh and blood," Salvatore said, taking another calm, measured step forward.
"I didn't want to kill you!" Carmine cried, tears of rage spilling down his cheeks. "The sniper was supposed to shoot through the back window of your car and scare you into stepping down! The wind took the bullet! It was an accident!"
"An accident that you concealed while I starved on soup for eight years," Salvatore growled, the calm slipping away to reveal the monstrous predator beneath. "While you watched me suffer every single day. While you paid Dr. Peter to keep me poisoned and weak."
Carmine's hand trembled violently on the trigger. "It ends tonight, brother. If I'm going down, you're not walking out of here either!"
Carmine squeezed the trigger.
I didn't hesitate. I threw the heavy steel medical case directly at Carmine's outstretched arm. The heavy case struck his wrist just as the gun discharged.
The shot went wild, shattering the office window into a million glittering fragments. Salvatore closed the distance in a heartbeat. He caught Carmine's wrist, twisting it inward until the bone snapped with a sickening pop. The silver gun clattered harmlessly to the floor.
Salvatore drove his brother down onto the oak desk, pinning him by the throat with one massive forearm. Carmine gasped for air, thrashing beneath his older brother's unyielding weight.
"Please, Sal," Carmine choked out, his arrogance crumbling into pathetic whimpering. "We're blood. You can't kill your own brother. Father would have never allowed it."
Salvatore stared down at him for a long, suffocating moment. The fury in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by an icy, absolute finality.
"You ceased being my brother the moment you pulled that trigger at Pier 42," Salvatore said coldly.
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He didn't fire. Instead, he stepped back and signaled Marco.
"Call the federal prosecutor's task force," Salvatore commanded. "Hand over the Swiss pistol, the bullet Dr. Russo extracted from my jaw, and the complete financial ledgers in that safe. Let Carmine spend the remaining forty years of his life eating prison slop through a straw."
