Chapter 3 - The Night the Lion Returned
Elena tried to stop me from leaving the mansion.
“You can barely stand,” she said.
“I do not need to stand to give an order.”
“Aldo has armed men.”
“So do I.”
“Men whose loyalty you no longer trust.”
She was right, which irritated me more than if she had been wrong.
My security chief, Marco Bellini, entered carrying a bulletproof vest and a handgun.
“We have twelve loyal men ready,” he said. “Aldo has at least twenty at Pier Nineteen.”
“Call Captain Rizzo.”
“He is already there with Aldo.”
“Vitale?”
“No answer.”
“Conti?”
“His phone is off.”
The empire I had built over thirty years was collapsing in one night.
Elena stood beside my wheelchair.
“You need the police.”
I looked at her.
She gave me a flat expression.
“Yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds.”
Marco almost smiled.
I strapped the vest beneath my shirt.
“Elena, take Giulia to the safe room.”
“No.”
“That was not a request.”
“You said we were under your protection.”
“You are.”
“Then explain why the safest place in this mansion is beside the man everyone is trying to kill.”
Giulia appeared behind her, still wearing the red scarf.
“I packed crackers.”
I stared at them both.
“This is not a family outing.”
Elena crossed her arms.
“Then stop acting as though dying at the harbor is a reasonable plan.”
“I am not going there to die.”
“What are you going there to do?”
“Remind them.”
“Of what?”
I looked at Marco.
“Bring the car.”
Elena stepped in front of the wheelchair.
“No.”
Every guard in the room froze.
Few people had ever told me no.
Fewer had survived doing it twice.
Elena’s voice shook, but she held her ground.
“If you go into that warehouse surrounded by Aldo’s men, you will be dead before you finish your first threat.”
“Move.”
“Use what he does not know.”
“What?”
“He thinks you are still being poisoned.”
I studied her.
“He thinks you are confused, weak, and isolated,” Elena continued. “Let him believe it.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“She has a point.”
“I do not pay you to agree with the staff.”
“No, sir.”
Giulia raised her hand.
No one knew why.
“What?” I asked.
“You should pretend to be asleep.”
Elena looked down at her.
“Why?”
“Bad people talk when they think children are sleeping.”
The room went quiet.
I turned to Marco.
“Call Aldo.”
Marco put the phone on speaker.
Aldo answered immediately.
“Marco.”
“Mr. Castellano’s condition has worsened,” Marco said. “The doctor says he may not survive the night.”
Silence.
Then Aldo asked, “Is he conscious?”
“Barely.”
“Keep the house sealed. I will return after the captains’ meeting.”
“You should come now.”
“I said after the meeting.”
The line went dead.
I smiled without humor.
“He did not even pretend to be concerned.”
“What now?” Elena asked.
“Now Aldo comes to claim the throne.”
We moved Romano to a locked wine cellar under guard. The laboratory prepared treatment instructions, and a private medical team was summoned from another state.
Then we arranged the bedroom.
I lay beneath the blankets, pale and motionless. A heart monitor displayed numbers controlled by a technician in the adjoining room. Marco reduced the guards outside my door to one man, carefully chosen to appear nervous.
Elena and Giulia hid behind a concealed panel near the bookcase.
“You should be in the safe room,” I whispered.
“And miss your brilliant plan?” Elena replied.
“This was your plan.”
“That is why I do not trust you to execute it.”
The estate gates opened shortly after midnight.
Aldo returned with Captain Rizzo, Captain Vitale, and six armed men.
Marco met them downstairs.
From the hall, I heard Aldo’s voice.
“How long does he have?”
“Minutes, perhaps.”
“And Romano?”
“He left.”
A pause.
Aldo had expected the doctor to remain under control.
The bedroom door opened.
I kept my eyes closed.
Footsteps approached the bed.
Aldo stood over me.
For twenty years, I had trusted that man with my businesses, my secrets, and my life. I had attended his daughter’s wedding. I had buried his brother. I had made him wealthy enough to buy respect from people who once refused to let him enter through their front doors.
He leaned closer.
“You should have signed the succession papers,” he whispered.
Captain Rizzo shifted behind him.
“Is he gone?”
“Almost.”
Aldo reached beneath my pillow.
His fingers found the family signet ring I had worn every day since my father’s death.
He pulled it from my hand.
That was when I opened my eyes.
“It never fit you,” I said.
Aldo staggered backward.
Rizzo reached for his gun.
Marco and four loyal guards emerged from the adjoining room, weapons raised.
“Hands where I can see them,” Marco ordered.
Vitale immediately dropped his weapon.
Rizzo did not.
He fired once.
The bullet shattered a lamp beside my bed.
Marco’s men returned fire. Rizzo fell against the wall, wounded in the shoulder.
Elena covered Giulia’s mouth behind the panel.
Aldo stared at me as though I had risen from a grave.
“You should be dead.”
“You paid the wrong doctor.”
His face hardened.
“You cannot hold the harbor from a wheelchair.”
“I held it while you were still stealing cigarettes from your father’s store.”
“The captains have chosen me.”
“Have they?”
Vitale lowered his eyes.
The other men slowly placed their weapons on the floor.
Aldo looked around.
“You think they are loyal to you? They are afraid.”
“Fear is unreliable,” I said. “But evidence is useful.”
Marco placed a recorder on the table.
Romano’s confession played through the room.
Aldo’s voice was not on it, but the doctor named dates, payments, delivery methods, and the false reports used to convince everyone I was dying.
Vitale looked at Aldo with disgust.
“You poisoned him?”
“He was finished,” Aldo snapped. “I prevented a war.”
“You started one,” I said.
Aldo stepped closer.
“You were weak long before the medicine. You trusted Camilla while she laughed at you behind closed doors. You ignored the captains. You treated me like a servant.”
“I treated you like a brother.”
“You treated me like a shadow.”
His hand moved inside his jacket.
Before anyone could fire, the concealed panel opened.
A small red scarf flashed across the room.
Giulia threw something at Aldo.
A packet of crackers struck his face.
He flinched.
Marco tackled him before he could draw his gun.
Elena ran out and grabbed Giulia.
“What were you thinking?”
“He had angry eyebrows.”
Aldo struggled beneath Marco.
“This changes nothing!” he shouted. “You are sick. The empire is already divided.”
I pushed myself upright.
My arms shook, but my voice did not.
“Then I will rebuild it.”
Aldo looked at me with hatred.
“You will never walk again.”
Giulia slipped free of Elena’s grip and stood near my bed.
She looked at Aldo.
“You don’t know that.”
Aldo laughed bitterly.
“You think this child saved you?”
May you like
I looked at the little girl who had noticed what grown men had ignored.
“No,” I said. “She reminded me to save myself.”
