Chapter 10
By midnight, the storm had arrived.
Sheets of rain lashed against the high glass windows of Cassian’s private study, drumming a relentless, militaristic rhythm against the stone walls. The fire crackled in the limestone hearth, throwing warm, dancing amber shadows across the leather-bound ledgers and oil portraits of his ancestors.
Cassian sat behind his massive mahogany desk, wearing a fresh white dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his sleeves rolled back, an untouched tumbler of Scotch resting beside his blotter.
Frank stepped into the study, dripping wet in his dark trench coat, his face tight and exhausted beneath the lamplight.
“Report, Frank,” Cassian commanded quietly.
“Silvio finished the operation on Route 9, Boss,” Frank reported, stepping up to the desk. “The Falco ambush team was completely neutralized. Seven vehicles destroyed. No survivors. Don Falco’s private residence in Atlantic City was breached thirty minutes ago—he has agreed to surrender all territorial claims to the northern ports and signed an unconditional surrender.”
“And Brennan?”
“Locked in the container at Pier 42,” Frank replied, his voice dropping an octave. “He will arrive in South America by the end of the month. He has no name, no money, and no passport. The port captains will ensure he never sees the sun.”
Cassian took a slow, measured sip of his Scotch, letting the peat and fire warm his throat. “Good. The house is clean.”
“Not entirely, Don Morretti,” Frank said, his hand reaching into his soaked overcoat.
He pulled out a heavy, sealed plastic evidence bag containing Brennan’s confiscated satellite phone—a device that had been recovered from the root cellar where Estelle had been starved.
Frank laid the glowing device on the desk.
The screen was lit with a pulsing green indicator. An incoming call from an unlisted, military-grade satellite frequency originating from somewhere in the Mediterranean.
Cassian’s eyes narrowed into twin shards of slate. “Who is calling an encrypted frequency in the middle of a storm?”
“We ran the routing codes before bringing it up, Boss,” Frank whispered, his breath catching slightly. “The signal didn't originate from the Falcos. And it didn't come from Chicago.”
Cassian reached across the desk, picking up the heavy phone. He pressed the speaker button with his thumb, setting the device down between them.
“Speak,” Cassian said, his low, gravelly baritone cutting through the crackle of the static.
A dry, aristocratic female voice chuckled softly through the speaker—a voice refined by European finishing schools, but carrying the unmistakable, terrifying cadence of the old Brooklyn aristocracy.
“Cassian, my darling nephew,” the woman said through the storm static. “I hear you finally put my foolish brother's house in order.”
Cassian went completely rigid in his leather chair. The blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice.
He recognized that voice. It belonged to Beatrice Morretti—his father’s older sister, the woman who was supposed to have drowned in a yacht fire off the coast of Capri twenty-five years ago.
“Beatrice,” Cassian murmured, his voice dead calm, though the knuckles of his right hand turned white against the mahogany.
“You always were the clever one, Cassian,” Beatrice purred through the speaker. “Brennan was a blunt instrument, and Lavinia was an impatient little whore. But they served their purpose. While you were busy rescuing your pathetic mother and hunting Falco soldiers on the turnpike, my men secured the vaults beneath the Manhattan diamond exchange.”
The room went deathly silent, save for the rain battering the glass.
“What did you take, Beatrice?” Cassian asked softly.
“I took what your father stole from me thirty years ago, my dear,” Beatrice replied, her voice dropping into a chilling, venomous whisper. “The original charter of the Five Families. The one bearing Estelle’s true maiden name. You think you’re a Morretti, Cassian? Ask your mother who your real father was before the sun comes up.”
The satellite connection clicked dead with a sharp, electronic chirp.
The study fell into an absolute, suffocating quiet.
Cassian sat motionless beneath the flickering firelight, his ice-blue eyes fixed on the dark glass of the window, watching the rain streak across the night.
He slowly reached into his desk drawer, pulled out his customized 1911 pistol, and racked a fresh round into the chamber with a heavy, definitive metallic snap.
He looked at Frank, his jaw locking into unbreakable granite.
“Frank,” Cassian whispered into the shadows.
May you like
“Yes, Don Morretti?”
“Assemble the captains from Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan,” Cassian commanded, his voice cold, steady, and carrying the promise of a global war. “And wake Dr. Vance. We have one more truth to extract from this house.”
