Chapter 4 - MY UNCLE CALLED LOVE A DISEASE
Vittorio Moretti waited for me in my father’s old dining room.
He had not been dragged there.
He walked in under guard wearing a charcoal suit and the same gold watch he had worn at my father’s funeral.
That almost made me hate him more.
The old family house in Bensonhurst had been empty for years.
I kept it because my mother refused to sell.
Mahogany walls.
Long table.
Portrait of my father at the far end.
Vittorio looked around.
“Dramatic choice.”
I stood by the window.
“You chose the room when you betrayed me.”
He sighed.
“Dominic.”
“Sit.”
“I changed your diapers.”
“I said sit.”
He did.
Marco remained behind him.
Four captains stood against the walls.
Two loyal to me.
Two whose loyalty I had not decided yet.
Vittorio looked at them.
Then at me.
“You’re making family business into theater.”
“You gave Elena’s route to Colombo.”
“No.”
“Niko says otherwise.”
“Niko is a coward.”
“He is.”
I stepped closer.
“That doesn’t make him wrong.”
Vittorio’s mouth tightened.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“Kidnapping.”
“I kidnapped no one.”
“Conspiracy.”
“Be serious.”
“Attempted removal of Elena.”
Silence.
There.
The smallest pause.
I saw it.
Marco did too.
Vittorio leaned back.
“Elena was becoming a liability.”
One captain looked at the floor.
The other did not.
“How?”
“You changed security schedules for her.”
“Yes.”
“You canceled meetings because the child was sick.”
“One meeting.”
“You walked out of a sit-down with the Calabrese crew because the girl cut her chin.”
I remembered.
Mia had fallen in the kitchen.
Three stitches.
I had made it to the hospital before Elena.
She arrived and found me holding Mia while a nurse cleaned blood from my cuff.
I had never explained why.
“She needed someone.”
Vittorio stared.
“There.”
“What?”
“That.”
His voice hardened.
“You don’t hear yourself.”
I almost laughed.
“She’s three.”
“And you are Dominic Moretti.”
“I know my name.”
“Do you?”
He stood.
Marco moved.
I raised a hand.
Let him.
Vittorio pointed toward my father’s portrait.
“This family survived because men like him understood attachments become weapons.”
“My father got Francesca killed.”
The room froze.
Vittorio’s face changed.
Nobody spoke her name in this house.
Not for twenty-four years.
I continued.
“She was fourteen.”
“Dominic.”
“He put us in a car meant to demonstrate strength.”
“That bomb wasn’t his fault.”
“No.”
I looked toward the piano in the adjoining room.
Another one.
My mother used to force Francesca to practice.
After she died, every piano sounded like a coffin lid.
Until Mia pressed one key and asked why it was lonely.
“My father built a world where men knew hurting his children would hurt him.”
Vittorio shook his head.
“Exactly.”
“No.”
I looked back.
“He built a world where hurting children was considered strategy.”
Silence.
Vittorio’s expression hardened.
“Elena knew what she was entering.”
“She came to clean rooms.”
“She came into a Moretti house.”
“That is not consent to becoming collateral.”
One captain shifted.
Vittorio noticed.
“You see?”
He looked around the room.
“He speaks like an attorney now.”
“No.”
I spoke quietly.
“I speak like a man who finally understands what this family has called normal.”
Vittorio laughed.
“And you think a maid taught you that?”
“No.”
“A toddler?”
I stared.
“Yes.”
He shook his head.
“You’re sick.”
“Maybe.”
“You’ve let affection infect judgment.”
There it was.
Love as disease.
Care as infection.
My father believed the same thing.
He once told me the worst thing a man could give his enemies was a person he could not replace.
I had spent twenty years making sure everyone around me felt replaceable.
Employees.
Women.
Friends.
Even Marco, though we both knew it wasn’t true.
Then Mia had walked into the ballroom with a rag doll and told me my piano was lonely.
Three months later, I understood my father had been wrong.
The problem was not loving people.
The problem was building a world where love automatically placed a target on them.
“Where are they?” I asked.
Vittorio looked almost bored.
“I don’t know.”
“Who inside Colombo answers to you?”
“No one.”
“Niko says one of your men is inside the warehouse.”
His face changed.
Barely.
Enough.
Marco stepped forward.
“Name.”
Vittorio looked at him.
“You always were too loyal.”
Marco smiled without warmth.
“Funny night to criticize loyalty.”
I leaned toward my uncle.
“Give me the location.”
“I cannot.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“I don’t know which warehouse Vincent chose.”
Truth.
I believed that part.
“But you know the plan.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“What happens after I give Colombo territory?”
Silence.
“What happens to Elena?”
Nothing.
“Mia?”
Vittorio finally looked away.
My chest went cold.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew there was a possibility.”
“I told Vincent no child.”
I laughed.
It sounded ugly.
“Niko said the same thing.”
Vittorio’s jaw tightened.
“You cannot control animals like Colombo.”
“And yet you handed him my family.”
“They are not your family.”
The room stopped.
Marco looked at me.
I did not move.
Vittorio continued because arrogance mistakes silence for permission.
“Elena is an employee. The girl belongs to another dead man.”
I crossed the distance between us.
I did not hit him.
That surprised everybody.
Instead, I leaned close enough that only half the room could hear.
“Say that again.”
Vittorio swallowed.
He did not.
I straightened.
“Strip him.”
One captain frowned.
“Boss?”
“Every company share. Every account under Moretti control. Every property held through family trusts.”
Vittorio’s face changed.
“You cannot.”
“I can.”
“You need board signatures.”
“I have them.”
He stared.
I had spent the previous two hours arranging exactly that.
Not because I expected confession.
Because I knew what betrayal required.
Consequences that did not depend on bullets.
“You’re disinheriting blood over a maid?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I’m disinheriting a traitor.”
Two men at the wall reached for their jackets.
Marco’s gun cleared first.
“Don’t.”
They stopped.
Vittorio looked around.
“This is how civil wars begin.”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
“You’ll lose captains.”
“Yes.”
“Warehouses.”
“Yes.”
“Men.”
“Probably.”
“And for what?”
I thought of Mia asking if the piano got lonely.
Elena asleep at the kitchen table after a double shift.
Miss Rose under my coat.
“For the first thing this family ever gave me worth keeping.”
Vittorio stared.
Then laughed quietly.
“You’re going to destroy everything your father built.”
I looked toward the portrait.
“Good.”
My phone vibrated.
Marco checked the screen.
“Trace team.”
I answered.
A voice from technical operations came through.
“We isolated the last Colombo call.”
“Where?”
“Not Red Hook proper.”
I straightened.
“Erie Basin.”
Marco moved toward the map.
“Which section?”
“Old Berth Twelve marine warehouse.”
My chest tightened.
Too easy.
“They know we traced it.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s bait.”
“Probably.”
I looked at Vittorio.
His face gave me nothing.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“One of our watchers saw a Moretti sedan leaving Berth Twelve.”
“Plate?”
He read it.
Vittorio closed his eyes.
I knew the car.
Registered to one of his private crews.
My uncle had not known the warehouse.
But his people did.
I looked at him.
“Who is in that car?”
He said nothing.
“Vittorio.”
His voice was barely audible.
“Paolo.”
I knew him.
Thirty-four.
Former Army.
Vittorio’s godson.
The man who once played cards with Marco every Thursday.
“What was Paolo supposed to do?”
Silence.
My blood went cold.
“What was he supposed to do after the exchange?”
Vittorio finally looked at me.
“Clean up.”
Marco whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
I leaned toward my uncle.
“Elena?”
Vittorio’s eyes dropped.
“And the child?”
He closed them.
That was enough.
I turned toward Marco.
“Change of plan.”
“Berth Twelve?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Not everyone.”
He stared.
“You just called the whole organization.”
“That was before I knew where the knife was.”
“What do you want?”
I looked around at captains who no longer knew whether Moretti blood meant anything.
“Ten men.”
“Only ten?”
“Men who would walk into hell without asking what they inherit afterward.”
Marco nodded.
“I know the list.”
I looked toward Vittorio.
“Lock him downstairs.”
“You can’t leave me here.”
I turned.
“Why?”
His face tightened.
“Because Colombo will come for all of us if you fail.”
I opened the door.
“Then pray I don’t.”
Behind me, Vittorio called out.
“Dominic!”
I stopped.
“You choose that woman and child tonight, you are choosing them over us.”
I looked back at the man who had taught me blood was everything.
“No.”
My voice was calm.
“You made the choice when you put a price on them.”
Then I walked out.
May you like
War had already begun.
But for the first time in my life, I knew exactly which side I was on.
