Chapter 3
The abandoned wine cellar beneath the estate was bone-chillingly cold and damp. The air hung thick with the suffocating stench of mildew and rat droppings.
Nero had been tossed onto the floor. He was burning up with a vicious fever.
His pale, chapped lips vibrated as he mumbled deliriously, "Mommy... so cold... hold me, Mommy..."
I knelt beside him, spreading my arms in a futile, desperate attempt to blanket him with the nonexistent warmth of my soul.
But it was useless.
The bruise sprawling across his frail chest—the precise spot where Alessandro's boot had connected—had already blossomed into a horrifying, necrotic purplish-black.
He was fading fast.
Meanwhile, upstairs, the lavish banquet raged on.
Luca, Alessandro's underboss, wove swiftly through the crowd of oblivious guests and leaned in close to his Don's ear.
"After we tossed that scavenger out, you had me run a background check. He really is a body disposal guy assigned to Detroit's Twelfth Precinct slums. Furthermore..."
Luca hesitated, swallowing hard. "I reached out to our moles in the Detroit PD. They confirmed that a woman did turn up dead in the slums yesterday. Her physical description... strongly matches the Madam's."
"How much did she bribe those Detroit badge-wearers to play along in this little pantomime?" Alessandro scoffed, downing the rest of his champagne in one fluid motion.
"Tell our guys in Detroit to ignore it. If she wants to play dead, let her rot in character."
"But Sir, the Detroit Medical Examiner's Office just wired a fax to the house..."
Before Luca could finish his sentence, Elena glided over.
"Alessandro, whatever are you two whispering about? You look so grim." Smiling brilliantly, she handed Luca a fresh drink. "Luca, it's my birthday. Be a dear and don't burden the Don with depressing family business tonight."
Luca shot a questioning glance at Alessandro. Seeing no objection from the Don, he swallowed his urgent report, bowed respectfully, and melted back into the crowd.
Floating above, I stared at Elena's sickeningly hypocritical face.
I knew exactly what she had done. Barely ten minutes ago, she had bribed the guards in the comms room to intercept and destroy that fax.
She genuinely believed she could bury the truth forever.
But a paper shield can never hold back an inferno.
Late into the night, the last of the guests finally departed.
Alessandro sat alone in his dimly lit study, violently massaging his throbbing temples.
A heavy, suffocating restlessness gnawed at his insides.
He couldn't shake the phantom image of Nero's eyes—the eerie reflection of his own—or the haunting echo of that fragile voice: "Mommy really went to sleep."
Irritated, he yanked his bow tie loose, intending to distract himself with syndicate business.
Suddenly, a mechanized whirring broke the dead silence.
The secure, backup fax machine hidden away in the corner of the study hummed to life.
Alessandro frowned, his instincts sharpening as he approached it.
He picked up the very first sheet of paper.
It was a grainy, black-and-white photograph.
The subject was a female corpse. The body was practically a skeleton draped in skin, cheeks brutally hollowed out, hair dry and brittle as dead winter grass.
Due to the low resolution, the facial features were slightly blurred.
Alessandro let out a harsh scoff, casually tossing the paper onto the desk. "Genevieve, you really pulled out all the stops this time. Sourcing a disgusting prop photo like this must have taken real effort."
The machine kept churning.
The second sheet was a clinical, close-up photograph.
The right knee.
The bone structure protruding beneath the pale skin was mangled into a grotesquely twisted, unnatural angle—the unmistakable hallmark of a gunshot wound that had been left entirely untreated, forcing the shattered bone fragments to fuse and heal incorrectly.
Alessandro's gaze abruptly froze.
Five years ago, he had personally pulled the trigger that obliterated my right kneecap.
His breathing suddenly grew ragged. With fingers that were now visibly trembling, he snatched up the third sheet of paper.
It was a comprehensive autopsy report.
[Deceased: Genevieve.
Cause of Death: Severe malnutrition complicated by massive bilateral pulmonary infection; septic osteomyelitis originating from a chronic, untreated gunshot wound to the lower right extremity.
Time of Death: Seven days prior.]
"Fake... it's all fake!" Alessandro roared, viciously ripping the reports into shreds.
"She can't be dead! A woman as venomous as her doesn't just die in some filthy gutter!"
He snatched the receiver and aggressively punched in the number at the top of the Detroit Medical Examiner's letterhead.
The line picked up almost instantly.
"This is Alessandro," he growled. "I don't give a damn how much Genevieve paid you. Shut down this pathetic farce right now. Put her on the damn phone!"
The voice on the other end instantly tightened with terror. "My apologies, Don... but I regret to inform you that she is deceased."
Sensing the murderous intent radiating through the phone line, the coroner spoke faster, desperate to prove that this was no sick prank.
"If you need visual confirmation, sir, I can switch this to a video call."
Alessandro accepted the feed. The screen flared to life.
It was the morgue.
The coroner stepped back, a gloved hand pulling open one of the steel subterranean body lockers.
A lifeless, frost-kissed face appeared on the screen.
It was my face.
Alessandro stared unblinkingly at the screen, his eyes practically bulging from their sockets.
"This is impossible..." His voice broke into a violent tremble, laced with a raw, primal terror he didn't even realize he was feeling.
It was as if the marrow had been sucked straight from his bones. His knees buckled, and the untouchable Mafia Don collapsed heavily onto the floor.
Through the glowing screen, that frozen, lifeless corpse lay in total silence—a morbid monument mocking his arrogant omnipotence and blind ignorance.
"She... is actually dead?" Alessandro murmured to the empty room, his eyes wide, vacant, and utterly shattered.
