If you breathe a word, Mr. Moretti, we both die before we hit the floor.
The rain continued to fall as I approached Don Salvatore’s headquarters. My heart was a drum in my chest, a mix of apprehension and a strange, quiet dread. I had spent thirty years in this world, and every instinct screamed that a final confrontation with a man like Salvatore would be bloody.
I carried no weapons. Elena had wanted me to take the 9mm, but I refused. This wouldn’t be a fight with guns. It was already over.
The grand marble stairs were slick with rain, reflecting the faint glow of the streetlights. The heavy glass doors stood slightly ajar. I pushed them open, and they swung inward silently, revealing a cavernous foyer, utterly dark.
No guards. No ambush. Just silence.
I stepped inside, the marble floor cold beneath my feet. The air was stale, the scent of old cigars and lingering fear replaced by the smell of damp stone. My footsteps echoed in the vast, empty space. I walked through the reception area, where countless men had waited for an audience with the Don. It was deserted, chairs askew, lamps unplugged.
I pushed open the door to the main boardroom, expecting a desperate, final stand. Instead, I found it shrouded in a profound darkness, broken only by the faint light filtering in from the street outside.
At the far end of a twenty-foot mahogany table, a solitary figure sat. Don Salvatore.
He was a silhouette against the faint glow, slumped in his ornate leather chair. His posture was one of utter exhaustion. The polished table, usually meticulously clean, was littered with disconnected telephones, their cords tangled like dead snakes. Uncollected mail lay in scattered piles, eviction notices, bank statements, legal summonses.
He held an empty crystal glass in his hand, swirling the phantom contents. He didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge my presence. He just sat there, a broken man in a kingdom of shadows, his once-feared empire dissolved into silence and debt. The expected grand battle was reduced to this: an old man, alone, in the dark.
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