Chapter 6 - The Interrogation
“Frankie!” Alessandro shouted, his voice echoing down the high-ceilinged corridor like a thunderclap.
Frankie "The Hammer" appeared at the end of the hallway within three seconds, his gun already drawn. But when he saw his boss standing in the doorway without dark glasses, his eyes wide, clear, and tracking his movements, Frankie froze in place.
“Boss...” Frankie gasped, his jaw nearly hitting the floor. “Your... your eyes...”
“No time, Frankie,” Alessandro commanded, grabbing Isabella by her upper arm with a grip that made her squeal in pain. He dragged her down the hallway toward his private study. “Isabella handed Elena and Mia over to HLM operatives an hour ago. Get the security logs for the south gate now!”
Frankie’s training kicked in immediately. He pushed his shock aside, pulled out his radio, and barked orders to the gatehouse. “Override all protocols! Get me the license plates of every vehicle that cleared the south gate between four and five PM! Now!”
Alessandro threw Isabella into the heavy leather armchair in his study. She collapsed into it, sobbing hysterically, her polished composure completely destroyed.
“Alessandro, please!” Isabella cried, holding her bruised arm. “I didn't know! My father told me—he said she was a spy for the Marcone family! He told me to have her removed!”
Alessandro walked over to his desk. He picked up the bottle of eye drops Dr. Samuel Vance had left that morning. He unscrewed the cap, held it up to his left eye, and looked at the liquid.
Through his recovered vision, he could see tiny, milky residue settled at the bottom of the glass vial—an organic nerve toxin designed to cause localized optic paralysis.
He hurled the glass vial against the brick fireplace, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
“You and your father have been poisoning me for five years,” Alessandro said, his tone unnaturally calm—a quiet, freezing stillness that was infinitely worse than shouting. “You kept me blind so your family could siphon off the shipping routes in the south. And when Elena found the empty vial, you decided to murder her and a three-year-old child to protect your secret.”
“I didn't want them killed!” Isabella shrieked. “My father said they were just being relocated!”
Alessandro reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a heavy chrome .45 caliber pistol. He racked the slide with a sharp, metallic clack.
Isabella screamed, pressing herself flat against the back of the leather chair. “No! Alessandro, please! I’m your fiancée!”
“You were a political transaction,” Alessandro said coldly, aiming the gun straight at her forehead. “Where are they taking them?”
“The docks!” Isabella blurted out, her hands flying up to cover her face. “Pier 14! The HLM warehouse! My father has a cargo ship leaving for Istanbul at seven o’clock! They’re putting them on the ship!”
Frankie stepped into the study, his face dark. “Boss, gate logs confirm a blue Ford sedan left the south gate at 4:42 PM, registered to HLM Logistics. Driver was Marco Rossi—one of Arthur Romano’s top hitmen.”
Alessandro looked at his watch.
6:12 PM.
They had a thirty-minute lead.
Alessandro lowered the gun, turning to Frankie. “Lock her in the wine cellar. If Elena or Mia have a single scratch on them when I find them, burn Arthur Romano’s house to the ground with him inside it.”
“Consider it done, boss,” Frankie said, grabbing Isabella by her hair and hauling her out of the room as she wept and pleaded for mercy.
May you like
Alessandro walked over to the tall glass window overlooking the driveway. He looked at his own reflection in the rain-streaked glass. The dark glasses were gone forever.
He pulled a heavy tactical jacket over his suit, slid two extra magazines into his pockets, and walked out into the storm.
