Chapter 4 - The Garage Execution
The subterranean parking garage beneath Cavallaro Tower was cavernous, cold, and lit by buzzing fluorescent tubes that flickered like dying stars against the concrete pillars.
Julian Carter stood beside his black Mercedes sedan, looking frantic. He had thrown a wool overcoat over his silk pajamas, but his hands were shaking so badly he couldn't keep his car keys from rattling against the door handle.
As the private elevator doors chimed and slid open at the far end of the bay, Julian turned, forcing a bright, utterly unconvincing smile onto his face.
“Dante! Thank goodness. Look, I don't know what kind of paranoid episode you’re having in the middle of the night, but threatening me over the phone—?”
Dante walked out of the elevator.
He wasn't running. He wasn't yelling. He was walking with the slow, terrifying inevitability of a glacier. Behind him, Rocco stepped out of the shadows, carrying a heavy iron tire iron resting casually across his shoulder.
Julian swallowed hard, taking a step back against his car door. “What is this? What’s going on? Where are your bodyguards?”
“They’re upstairs,” Dante said, stopping ten feet away. “Watching over the girl you sold to Silas Vane.”
Julian’s face drained of every drop of color. His jaw slacked, and for a second, the polished corporate mask completely shattered, revealing the pathetic, sniveling coward hiding underneath.
“I... I don't know... what girl... what are you talking about?” Julian stammered, his voice cracking.
“Her name is Sophie Miller,” Dante said softly. “You remember her, Julian. She used to clean your office on Tuesdays. Before you made copies of my safe keys using a wax mold you stole from my desk, framed her for the theft, and traded her to Vane as a peace offering to secure your own independent smuggling routes.”
Julian’s breath hitched. He pressed his back flat against the Mercedes, his eyes darting frantically toward the exit ramps. “She... she stole from us, Dante! Vane just... Vane caught her trying to sell our shipping routes on the black market! I was just handing her over to justice—!”
“She didn't steal a damn thing,” Dante interrupted.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, blood-stained silver charm bracelet—the one Sophie had dropped between the cushions six months ago. He tossed it onto the concrete at Julian’s feet.
It clinked against the floor.
Julian stared down at it, trembling violently.
“You wanted the empire, Julian,” Dante said, closing the distance between them until he was standing right in his cousin’s personal space. “You wanted the docks, the real estate, the political influence. So you built a lie, wrapped it in my paranoia, and let a innocent girl rot in a basement for six months while you sat at my dinner table drinking my scotch.”
Julian suddenly lunged toward his coat pocket, his hand flashing toward a hidden snub-nosed revolver.
It was the most predictable move of his life.
Before Julian’s fingers even wrapped around the grip of the gun, Rocco was there. A heavy, bone-crushing blow from the iron tire iron caught Julian across the wrist with the sound of a dry branch snapping.
Julian screamed, dropping to his knees in the oil-stained concrete, clutching his shattered hand to his chest.
“Get up,” Dante commanded.
Julian whimpered, tears streaming down his face as he sagged against the side of his car. “Dante... please... we’re brothers... we built this together... don't do this—”
“Don't you ever use that word,” Dante hissed, grabbing Julian by the lapels of his coat and hoisting him up until his feet barely touched the ground. “You’re not my brother. You’re a parasite that got fat on my table.”
“The... the ledger is in the car!” Julian choked out, thrashing in terror. “In the glove box! All the accounts, all the offshore transfers! I didn't destroy it! I swear to God I kept it safe so we could use it against Vane! Take it! Take everything!”
Dante let go. Julian collapsed back onto the pavement like a broken marionette.
Dante popped the glove box of the Mercedes, pulled out a worn black leather ledger, and flipped through the pages. Every single fraudulent transfer, every kickback scheme, every signature forged in Dante’s name—it was all right there in Julian’s meticulous, arrogant handwriting.
Dante closed the ledger with a quiet snap.
He looked down at Julian, who was curled into a fetal position, weeping and holding his broken wrist.
“Rocco,” Dante said without looking back.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Pack up Julian’s penthouse. Empty his bank accounts. Freeze every asset he holds under the Cavallaro name.”
“And Julian?”
Dante turned around, walking slowly back toward the private elevator.
“Ship him to the lumber camps in northern Minnesota,” Dante said coldly. “Tell the foremen to put him on the lowest-paying, heaviest labor crew they have. Make sure he has no name, no money, and no communication with the outside world. If he survives ten years, he can crawl back to Chicago.”
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Julian let out a ragged, terrified wail. “No! Dante, please! Just kill me! Kill me now!”
“Killing you would be a mercy, Julian,” Dante said, stepping back into the elevator. “And I’m fresh out of mercy tonight.”
