Chapter 5
964words
No one dared answer.
I slumped against a medical crate, my eyes fixed on the team performing CPR on Mia. My tears had run dry.
I raised a trembling finger and pointed at Sophia, who was huddled in the corner.
"Her."
I lifted my bloodied palms for him to see. "And that ice bucket. She made me fish for the keys in the ice-cold bucket."
Papa followed my gaze to the bucket. One look at the ice and liquor was enough for him to understand exactly what had happened.
"Good," he said.
With a flick of his wrist, two Soldati stepped forward. They smashed several crystal decanters, scattering jagged shards across the carpet, then dragged Sophia out of the corner like a stray dog.
"No! Please don't do this! Lorenzo told me to do it! I'm innocent!" Sophia shrieked, her once-perfect makeup now a smeared mess, making her look utterly pathetic.
Papa didn't even spare her a glance as he issued a cold command. "Since she enjoys fishing for keys in ice so much, let's make sure she gets her fill."
He looked at the ice bucket, where the keys were long gone. "Make her crawl over here and fish for the keys. If she can't find them, she keeps going."
Sophia's scream spiked an octave but was quickly cut short by the cold steel of a rifle.
With no other way out, she dropped to her knees and began to crawl. With every inch she moved, the glass shards bit deeper into her palms. Then she was forced to plunge her mangled hands into the ice bucket.
The hall was filled with her gut-wrenching wails. Her lips turned a ghostly white from the sharp pain.
I didn't feel the rush of satisfaction I had expected. Watching her endure what I once suffered, hearing her beg and plead, I felt nothing but emptiness. No amount of retribution could undo the pain Mia had endured.
"Beep… Beep… Beep…"
The flat line on the monitor suddenly twitched, faint but carrying the unmistakable rhythm of life.
"We have a pulse! Her heartbeat is back!" the doctor shouted, sweat pouring down his face. "Get her to a sterile ICU now! Move!"
In that instant, I felt my own soul return to my body.
I struggled to stand, desperate to follow the gurney, but Papa gently held me back.
"Elena, go be with Mia," he said, the violence in his eyes softening into quiet affection as he looked at me. "I'll clean up the rest."
I shook my head and looked at Lorenzo, who was still kneeling on the floor, drenched in a cold sweat.
"No, Papa."
I locked eyes with Lorenzo, staring into his fear.
"This piece of trash," I said coldly, "is mine to deal with. Leave him, and everything connected to him, to me."
…
In the interrogation room, a harsh light beat down on Lorenzo's face, blinding enough that he could barely keep his eyes open.
This was his second day in detention. No water, no food—nothing but relentless light and noise.
But when I stepped into the room, Lorenzo didn't fall to his knees begging for mercy like I had expected. Instead, his bloodshot eyes held the manic gleam of a gambler convinced he still had one last card to play.
"Hey, Elena, you finally showed up." He licked his cracked, bleeding lips, his face twitching into a defiant smirk. "I knew you'd come. You won't kill me."
I sat in the only high-backed chair in the room, idly flicking an exquisite lighter open and shut as I watched him with detached interest. "Oh? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."
"Because I'm a Capo. I'm the only one with the codes and the connections for the golden route to Amaland," Lorenzo roared, convinced that greed would force me to fold.
"Don Corleone might be powerful, but without my route, the Corleone famiglia stands to lose billions every year. You're a smart woman, Elena. Let me go. Let me keep running the route for Don Corleone. I'll pledge my lifelong loyalty to him."
He was certain that profit outweighed everything. It was the only logic he knew for surviving in the underworld as a Capo.
"Are those your last words?" I asked.
I sighed, my gaze filled with nothing but pity. "Lorenzo, you really are pathetic."
I snapped my fingers.
The projector behind me hummed to life, casting an image onto the weathered concrete wall.
It was a video conference feed. On the screen, Pedro Costa, the Capo of Amaland and the man Lorenzo considered his blood brother, raised a wine glass toward the camera with a fawning smile.
"Ms. Corleone, rest assured. From now on, we only recognize your signature on the shipments. As for Lorenzo… that idiot skimmed so much off the top that he's worth more to us dead than alive."
The smirk on Lorenzo's face froze. "No! That's impossible! Pedro and I had each other's backs for years!"
"And then there's this."
I flicked a switch, and the screen changed to the interface of Swisszer Bank.
"Your secret offshore accounts. The password was Sophia's birthday, wasn't it? It was too easy to figure out."
The screen displayed the bank balance in bold numbers. It was $0.00.
"As of last night, I've transferred every cent of your blood money into a medical trust in Mia's name. The funds will go toward treating children with rare diseases."
I stood up and walked over to his cage, looking him straight in the eye through the iron bars.
"Lorenzo, your precious route, your connections, your wealth… none of it is worth a single strand of Mia's hair to me."
