Chapter 7 - The Waters of Venice
The strike on Venice occurred at 2:00 AM under a thick, black sky devoid of moon or stars.
Matteo Conti’s private palazzo—a magnificent fifteenth-century estate resting directly on the Grand Canal—was guarded by thirty private mercenaries equipped with thermal sensors and automatic weapons. Conti believed he was untouchable behind the labyrinth of Venetian canals and his high-level political connections in Rome.
He was wrong.
Alessandro didn't attack from the water.
While Conti’s security team focused their night-vision scopes on the fog-draped canal, three high-speed stealth zodiac boats approached from the lagoon, while Alessandro and twelve elite operators dropped onto the palazzo’s clay-tile roof directly from a silenced, low-altitude helicopter.
The breach was fast, silent, and terrifyingly efficient.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Suppressed rifle fire eliminated the rooftop sentries before they could hit their alarm buttons. Within three minutes, Alessandro’s team cut through the skylight glass using high-frequency thermal saws and dropped into the grand upper gallery of the palazzo.
Down in the master study, ninety-year-old Don Matteo Conti sat behind a massive antique desk, sipping brandy, reading a leather-bound book of Latin poetry.
The heavy mahogany doors of his study didn't burst open; they were silently unlatched from the inside by Alessandro’s advance scout.
Alessandro walked into the warm, gold-lit room alone, carrying no rifle—only a single custom Beretta pistol held at his side.
Conti set his crystal glass down, his old hand trembling slightly as he looked up over his half-moon spectacles.
“Alessandro,” the old Godfather whispered, his voice thin and dry like rustling parchment. “I expected you two hours ago.”
“You knew I was coming,” Alessandro said, stopping ten feet from the desk.
“The moment Domenico stopped answering his encrypted satellite phone at midnight, I knew David Vance’s ghost had finally caught up with me,” Conti admitted, taking a slow, shaky breath. “How did you find the drive?”
Alessandro pulled the blue wool rabbit’s small plastic eye from his pocket—a spare piece Dr. Emil had replaced—and tossed it onto the desk. It clattered softly against the antique mahogany.
“A three-year-old girl walked into my house carrying the truth,” Alessandro said flatly.
Conti let out a dry, raspy laugh that turned into a coughing fit. “A child... after ten years of intelligence operations, wiretaps, and murders... a child brought you the ledger.”
“My father trusted you, Matteo,” Alessandro said, his tone dropping into that terrifying, absolute register. “You sat at his table. You held me when I was a boy.”
Conti’s old eyes flashed with a sudden, bitter arrogance. “Your father was soft, Alessandro! He wanted to turn the Northern Syndicate into a legitimate shipping conglomerate! He wanted to stop the narcotics transit through Venice! Do you know how many hundreds of millions of euros that would have cost my family?”
“So you hired Trevisan to butcher him in his own office,” Alessandro said.
“I did what was necessary for the survival of the families!” Conti shouted, his frail chest heaving. “And I would do it again!”
Conti’s hand darted beneath the edge of his mahogany desk, reaching for a hidden panic button that would detonate four explosive charges planted in the support pillars of the ground floor, blowing the palazzo into the canal and killing everyone inside.
BANG.
Alessandro didn't hesitate. A single round from his Beretta pierced the center of Conti’s forehead before the old man’s finger could touch the button.
Don Matteo Conti collapsed forward across his antique desk, his Latin poetry book staining dark crimson beneath his cheek.
Alessandro stood in the quiet room, the smell of gunpowder mixing with the scent of aged leather and old brandy.
He reached into his tactical vest pocket, pulling out the small, shiny blue plastic button Emma had given him. He held it in his palm for a moment, staring at it under the soft lamp light.
“It worked, little one,” Alessandro whispered to the empty room.
He turned his back on the dead Godfather and walked out into the corridor.
“Marco,” Alessandro spoke into his collar radio. “Initiate Phase Two. Secure the offshore accounts, contact the U.S. Federal Prosecutor’s office, and burn this building to the waterline.”
May you like
“Understood, Don Moretti,” Marco replied over the radio. “And what about Villa Moretti?”
“Prepare my private helicopter,” Alessandro ordered, stepping out onto the rooftop landing zone as the first light of dawn began to paint the Venetian sky in brilliant pink and gold. “I am going home.”
