Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Blood
Roman didn’t flinch. He didn’t draw his weapon. He simply stood in the center of the vast, freezing warehouse floor, his dark eyes locked onto Dante Moretti high above on the metal catwalk.
"You played a very dangerous game, Dante," Roman said, his voice cutting through the hollow acoustics of the building with chilling calm. "You took fifty thousand dollars every month from a man who cuts throats for a living, and you thought you could hide behind my mother's apron strings forever."
Dante let out a sharp, arrogant bark of laughter. He pushed away from the railing, taking a slow, casual stroll down the length of the catwalk toward the steel staircase leading to the floor.
"Your mother is a pragmatic woman, Roman," Dante mocked, descending the metal stairs with heavy, echoing boots. "She knew that if you found out about the girl, you’d drop the syndicate like a sack of garbage and start a holy war across the Midwest. I was doing the D’Angelo family a favor! I kept your little family secret tucked away in a cheap motel while you sat on your throne."
"You terrorized a three-year-old child," Roman replied, each word dropping like a sledgehammer. "You made her sleep on motel floors while you bought imported scotch with my blood money."
Dante reached the bottom of the stairs, stopping ten feet away from Roman. He unbuttoned his wool trench coat, revealing a custom shoulder holster cradling a twin-set of silver-plated Berettas. His smile vanished, replaced by a cold, venomous sneer.
"She’s a bastard child born out of wedlock with a nobody from the docks," Dante spat. "She was a liability to the family name! And quite frankly, Roman, you should be thanking me. I gave you an excuse to keep your hands clean while I managed the loose ends."
Before Dante could finish his sentence, Roman crossed the ten-foot gap between them with terrifying, explosive speed.
He didn't punch him. He grabbed Dante by the throat with one massive hand, lifting the grown man six inches off the concrete floor as if he weighed nothing at all. Dante’s hands flew to Roman’s wrist, clawing frantically at the iron grip, his face instantly turning a deep, bruised purple as his air supply was ruthlessly cut off.
"You talk too much," Roman whispered directly into Dante’s bulging eyes.
From the shadows around the perimeter of the warehouse, the distinctive clack-clack of dozens of assault rifles being unholstered echoed in unison. Dante’s personal guards, stationed behind the towering stacks of lumber, suddenly found themselves staring down the barrels of forty D’Angelo enforcers who had quietly infiltrated the upper and lower levels while Dante was busy running his mouth.
Vance stepped forward, casually flicking a cigarette butt onto the concrete floor and grinding it out with his boot heel. "Looks like your retirement fund just got canceled, Dante."
Roman loosened his grip just enough for Dante to gasp in a ragged, desperate lungful of air, slamming him hard against the side of a wooden shipping crate.
"Where are the ledgers?" Roman demanded, pressing the cold barrel of his Sig Sauer directly under Dante’s chin. "The real ledgers. Not the ones my mother cooked for the syndicate board."
Dante coughed violently, a thin trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. He wheezed, his eyes wide with stark, unadulterated terror as he stared into the dead-end eyes of the man he had underestimated for three long years.
"Office... upstairs," Dante choked out, pointing a trembling finger toward a glass-walled mezzanine office overlooking the docks. "Safe behind the portrait of your grandfather... combination is the date the syndicate was founded."
Roman didn't hesitate. He shoved Dante hard into the arms of two waiting enforcers, who slammed plastic flex-cuffs around his wrists with brutal efficiency.
"Hold him here," Roman ordered without looking back. "If he blinks too hard, put a bullet in his kneecap."
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Roman strode toward the metal staircase leading to the mezzanine office, his heart hammering against his ribs not out of fear, but out of a burning, insatiable need for absolute truth.
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