26: The Midnight Meeting

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

POV: Julian Vane

Sleep didn't come. It couldn't. Not with the "Old Butcher" breathing the same air three floors above us. Dante was out cold beside me, his body finally surrendering to the exhaustion of a man who had spent the last seventy-two hours playing god. His arm was draped over my waist, a heavy, warm anchor, but my mind was drifting in the dark.

I waited until his breathing deepened into a rhythmic, heavy pull. Slowly, I disentangled myself, sliding out from under the silk sheets. I didn't turn on the lights. I didn't need to. I knew the geometry of this room as well as I knew the columns of a ledger.

I moved to the small, private study tucked into the corner of the master suite. This was my inner sanctum, where the most sensitive Moretti servers were housed. I sat down, the blue light of the triple monitors washing over my skin.

"Show me the penthouse foyer," I whispered into the headset.

The screen flickered. The security feed from Vincenzo’s floor appeared. It was 2:14 AM.

For ten minutes, the screen showed nothing but a static hallway of marble and gold. Then, the service elevator the one used for deliveries and staff dinged. The doors slid open, and a man stepped out.

He was wearing a delivery uniform, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but I didn't need to see his face. I knew that gait. It was a slight limp in the right leg, a remnant of a shootout at the docks four years ago.

Pietro Rossi.

Pietro was one of the "Founding Fathers" of the Moretti organization. He had been my father-in-law's primary hitman in the eighties. When Dante took the throne, Pietro had been "retired" to a quiet suburban life with a generous pension. He was a man of the old world a man who believed that women were for the kitchen and Vanes were for the grave.

I watched as Vincenzo opened his door. He didn't look like a dying man now. He looked sharp, his posture straight as he ushered Pietro inside.

I couldn't hear them the penthouse was swept for bugs daily but I could see the reflection in the polished marble of the hallway. They weren't hugging. They weren't reminiscing. Vincenzo was handing Pietro a manila envelope.

I tapped into the "Blood Audit" database, my fingers flying across the keys. I checked Pietro’s recent activity. His pension had been steady for three years, but in the last forty-eight hours, a series of deposits had been made into his wife's maiden-name account. Small amounts. Untraceable cash.

The source wasn't Vincenzo. Vincenzo was broke I’d audited his Sicilian accounts months ago.

The money was coming from a shell company called "Valletta Imports."

Malta.

"You're a long way from home, Vincenzo," I whispered to the screen.

Vincenzo wasn't here for a family reunion. He wasn't even here for a power grab. He was here as a broker. Valletta Imports was the front for the Malta Syndicate, the most ruthless human trafficking and arms-dealing organization in the Mediterranean. If Vincenzo was meeting Pietro and taking Malta money, it meant he had sold something to the Syndicate.

And in the Moretti world, there was only one thing the Syndicate would pay that much for: The Port Access Codes.

If the Maltese got the codes, the East End docks would become a sieve for every illegal cargo on the planet. The feds would descend on us within a week. Dante’s "legitimate" empire would be dismantled before the ink on the merger was dry.

I leaned back, the blue light reflecting in my eyes. I could go to Dante. I could wake him up and tell him his father was a traitor. But Dante was a man of honor. He would confront Vincenzo, and Vincenzo would lie, and the internal rift would widen until the Capos chose a side.

I couldn't let it get that far.

I opened a new window and began to craft a "Ghost Audit." I wasn't going to tell Dante. I was going to feed Pietro Rossi a false set of codes a digital poison that would lead the Malta Syndicate directly into a federal sting operation.

Vincenzo wanted to use the "Old Ways" to subvert the "New Empire." Fine. I would use the "Digital Ways" to bury him.

I felt a presence behind me. I didn't jump. I knew that scent sandalwood and cold rain.

"You're working late," Dante said. His voice was thick with sleep, but his hand on my shoulder was heavy with suspicion.

"Just some discrepancies in the shipping insurance," I lied, my heart doing a slow, painful thud against my ribs. I minimized the security feed, leaving only a spreadsheet of numbers on the screen.

Dante leaned down, his face pressing against mine. He looked at the screen, then at me. "You're a terrible liar, Julian. Your pupils are blown."

He turned the monitor off. The room went pitch black.

"Dante "

"Whatever you're doing, whatever game you're playing with my father... be careful," he whispered into my ear. "He looks like a ghost, but he still has teeth. If you go behind my back, and you get caught... I don't know if I can save you from the men who still call him 'Don'."

"I'm not asking you to save me," I said, turning in the chair to face him. I could see the outline of his jaw in the moonlight. "I'm telling you that I'm the one who's going to save us."

Dante didn't say anything for a long time. He just picked me up, carrying me back toward the bed in silence. But as he pulled me against him, I felt the cold weight of the remote I had hidden in my pocket the one that held the "Poison Codes."

The audit had moved beyond the books. It was a war for the soul of the Moretti name. And by sunrise, I was going to find out if blood really was thicker than the ink on a contract.