Chapter 5 - The Reckoning
By 11:00 a.m., the sub-basement under our private meatpacking facility in Brooklyn was cold enough to freeze water in seconds.
Dominic was stripped of his suit and zip-tied to a heavy wooden chair under a single hanging lightbulb. His face was bruised, his nose broken from Marco’s knuckles, but he was still breathing, his teeth chattering uncontrollably from the freezing temperature.
The heavy iron door swung open.
I walked into the room, pushing a wheelchair. Sitting in the chair, wrapped in a thick wool coat and a warm thermal blanket, was Isabella.
Dominic’s eyes went wide as saucers. His mouth dropped open, his jaw trembling violently as if he were looking at a ghost.
"I... Isabella?" Dominic gasped, his voice cracking into a high-pitched shriek. "No... no! You're dead! Dr. Mercer said you died on the table!"
Isabella looked at her husband with cold, detached disgust. The physical pain from the deep cuts on her back was still intense, but the strength in her eyes was absolute.
"I survived, Dominic," Isabella said quietly, her voice ringing clearly through the concrete chamber. "Did you really think a few shallow cuts from a ceramic blade were enough to kill my father's daughter?"
"Bella... Bella, please!" Dominic whimpered, thrashing against the plastic zip-ties, tears of genuine horror streaming down his face now. "They made me do it! The FBI threatened me with thirty years for my father's tax crimes! I didn't want to hurt you! I loved you!"
"You didn't love me," Isabella said, her voice completely free of emotion. "You loved the access I gave you. You loved the luxury, the power, and the thrill of playing both sides. You were willing to let me bleed to death in an alley just so you could retire comfortably in Europe on federal witness money."
I stepped forward, setting a legal folder and a pen on a small metal table beside Dominic.
"Inside this folder," I said coldly, "is a full, detailed confession of your corporate embezzlement, your illegal wiretapping, and your premeditated conspiracy to commit murder. You are going to sign every page."
"And if I don't?!" Dominic spat, trying to summon a final shred of defiance. "If I don't sign, you kill me! And the feds will tear your empire apart!"
"If you don't sign," I leaned down, whispering in his ear, "I hand you over to my brother Carlo. He’s spent the last four hours preparing a set of scalpels far sharper than the one you used on my daughter. And I will make sure you stay alive for three days while he uses them."
Dominic looked at my face. He looked at Carlo standing silently in the shadow of the doorway holding a leather medical roll. Then he looked at Isabella, who didn't offer a single second of mercy.
He collapsed inward, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Give me the pen," he wept. "Give me the damn pen!"
Ten minutes later, all twenty pages were signed, witnessed, and video-recorded on high-definition camera.
I took the signed documents, handed them to Marco, and turned toward the door.
"What about him, Boss?" Marco asked, pointing a gun at Dominic’s head. "Do we sink him in the bay?"
"No," I said, stopping at the door and looking back. "Killing him is too easy. Send the signed confessions, the video footage, and the financial ledgers directly to Special Agent Miller at the FBI."
Dominic looked up, confused. "What?"
"You failed your federal handlers, Dominic," I said with a terrifying smile. "You committed attempted murder against a civilian, falsified federal evidence, and exposed your own sting operation. You aren't going to witness protection. You're going to a maximum-security federal penitentiary for the next forty years—where every inmate inside knows exactly what happens to a mob informant."
Dominic’s eyes filled with utter terror as he realized his fate. A federal prison filled with men my family controlled was a fate ten times worse than death.
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"No! Victor! Please! Just shoot me! Shoot me!" Dominic screamed, his shrieks echoing off the concrete walls as Marco pulled him away toward the transport van.
I pushed Isabella’s wheelchair out into the warm morning light.
