Chapter 5 - The Fall of a Traitor
Nico broke.
Driven by pure, unadulterated terror, he lunged not at Matteo, but toward the side exit leading to the hotel's service corridors. He shoved past a bewildered senator, knocking over a tray of champagne glasses that shattered loudly across the marble floor.
"Stop him!" someone shouted.
"Don't move," Matteo commanded calmly, raising a single hand.
He didn't run. He didn't even quicken his pace. Matteo simply walked after his cousin with the deliberate, unstoppable momentum of an executioner. Sal and Marco flanked him, while two private security guards immediately stepped in front of Elena and Sophie, forming an impenetrable wall of iron and suit fabric.
Nico burst through the double doors of the service corridor, his lungs burning, his mind racing. He sprinted down the narrow, tiled hallway, heading for the kitchen exit that led to 58th Street where his driver was waiting.
He reached the heavy metal fire door, slammed his weight against the push-bar, and stumbled out into the cool night air of the alleyway.
"Get in! Drive!" Nico screamed, sprinting toward the black sedan parked near the dumpster.
The driver's window rolled down slowly.
It wasn't Nico's driver sitting behind the wheel. It was a man named Frankie—one of Matteo’s most ruthless enforcers. Frankie was calmly eating an apple, an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear.
"Evening, Nico," Frankie said smoothly. "Car's full."
Nico spun around, backing up against the damp brick wall of the alley.
The fire door opened quietly. Matteo stepped out into the night, followed by Sal. The heavy door clicked shut behind them, cutting off the faint music and light from the ballroom.
"Matteo, listen to me!" Nico shrieked, raising his hands, his voice high-pitched and hysterical. "It wasn't just me! I was ordered to do it! Your father's old council—they didn't want a civilian woman in the family! They made me do it!"
Matteo stopped ten feet away. He pulled a silver cigarette case from his inner pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lit it with a quiet flick of a Zippo lighter. The tip glowed bright orange in the alley dark.
"My father's council was dissolved five years ago, Nico," Matteo said, exhaling a thin stream of smoke into the cool air. "You acted alone. You took money from the Newark accounts to pay off the graphic designer in Berlin. You bought three properties in Miami under a shell company called Voss Real Estate—a sick little joke, wasn't it?"
Nico's knees buckled. He slid down the brick wall until he was sitting in the grime of the alley floor, his expensive tuxedo ruined.
"Please, Matteo," Nico sobbed, clutching his hands together in a desperate prayer. "We're blood! We grew up together! My mother raised you after your mom died! For her sake... please!"
Matteo looked down at his cousin. For a moment, a profound, tragic sadness flickered across his harsh face. He remembered playing cards on his mother's porch as boys. He remembered Nico standing as his best man at a mock ceremony when they were teenagers.
"You're right," Matteo said softly. "We are blood. And because of my mother's memory, I will not put a bullet in your head tonight."
Nico gasped, a flood of pathetic relief washing over his face. "Thank you... thank you, Matteo, thank you—"
"Sal," Matteo cut in, his voice returning to absolute stone.
"Boss?"
"Take his phone, his wallet, and his passport. Put him on a cargo vessel bound for an iron mine in northern Siberia. He will work twelve-hour shifts in the pits for the rest of his natural life. If he ever sets foot on American soil again... skin him."
Nico's eyes went wide with a horror far worse than death. "No! Matteo, no! Shoot me! Just shoot me!"
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Sal stepped forward, grabbing Nico by the collar of his suit and hoisting him off the ground like a sack of laundry. Two other enforcers emerged from the shadows of the alley, swiftly securing Nico's arms with zip-ties and shoving a gag into his mouth to silence his frantic screams.
Matteo dropped his cigarette to the asphalt, crushing it beneath the heel of his shoe. He turned around, pushed open the metal fire door, and stepped back inside the hotel, leaving his past behind him in the dark.
