Chapter 5 - Confessions in the Dark
The basement bunker beneath the wine cellar was cold, smelling of damp earth, old iron, and fear.
Vincenzo hung by his wrists from a reinforced steel pipe, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The bravado of twenty-eight years of service had evaporated under the weight of Alessandro’s interrogation.
Marco stood beside the doorway, holding a steel clipboard, while Alessandro paced slowly in front of the hanging man, a cup of black espresso in his hand.
“The Sabatini family, Vincenzo?” Alessandro asked casually, taking a sip of the bitter coffee. “Or are you working for the new syndicate out of Palermo?”
Vincenzo spat a mixture of blood and saliva onto the concrete floor. “You’re... you’re a paranoid bastard, Moretti. You think everyone is selling you out.”
Alessandro didn’t flinch. He set the coffee cup down on a wooden crate with a sharp clink.
“My fiancée smiled at me while feeding my movements to the Sabatinis,” Alessandro said evenly. “My uncle poisoned my wine on my twenty-fifth birthday. Pardon me if I don’t take your word for granted.”
Vincenzo groaned, his shoulders straining against the chains. “I didn’t let an assassin in. I swear to you. I took a bribe to look the other way for a delivery.”
“What kind of delivery?” Marco demanded, stepping forward.
“Documents,” Vincenzo gasped. “Financial records from the port authority. A courier met someone near the west wall. I turned off Sector Four for ten minutes. That’s all! I swear on my mother’s grave, I didn’t know the child was out there!”
Alessandro stared at the man for a long, agonizing moment. He could see the terror in Vincenzo’s eyes—it was the raw, unadulterated fear of a man who realized he had underestimated the monster he worked for.
“Who was the courier?” Alessandro asked.
“I don’t know his name! He wore a gray cap and a trench coat. He paid me in cash—ten thousand euros dropped in the hollow of the oak tree.”
The oak tree.
The very tree where Alessandro had been resting. The very tree the little girl had climbed down from before finding him.
A cold fury washed over Alessandro. The traitor had been operating right beneath his nose, using the oldest tree on the estate as a dead drop. If Clara hadn't wandered out there—if she hadn’t climbed onto his chest and disrupted the afternoon—the drop would have gone completely unnoticed, and the rival syndicate would have secured the port authority's encryption keys.
“Marco,” Alessandro said, his voice chillingly flat.
“Signore?”
“Lock him in the lower holding cell. Strip his rank. At dawn, we trace that money.”
“And the girl?” Marco asked hesitantly.
May you like
Alessandro paused at the heavy iron door of the bunker, his hand resting on the cold steel handle. He thought of the small, warm weight against his chest, the smell of buttered bread, and the honey-colored eyes that had looked at him without fear.
“Leave her alone,” Alessandro said, and walked out into the dark.
