Chapter 3 - The Pointing Finger
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The afternoon sun broke through the clouds, casting long, golden shadows across the polished floors of Aleandro’s private study. He was reviewing a series of shipping manifests, his mind calculating the discrepancies in the northern port routes, when the heavy oak door creaked open.
It was a cardinal rule of the estate: no one entered the study uninvited.
Aleandro’s hand drifted instantly to the heavy pistol concealed in his desk drawer. He looked up, his gray eyes narrowing into lethal slits.
It wasn't an assassin. It was Mia.
She stood in the doorway, the stuffed rabbit dangling from one hand. She had wandered away from the staircase, her small, socked feet making absolutely no sound on the hardwood floor. She looked around the massive, intimidating room with mild curiosity, entirely unfazed by the glare of the most dangerous man in the city.
"You are not supposed to be in here," Aleandro said softly, releasing his grip on the weapon.
Mia didn't answer. Her attention had been captured by the massive arched window behind his desk. She walked past the billionaire boss, her small shoulder brushing against his tailored suit, and pressed her hands against the cold glass.
She stared down into the bustling courtyard, where dozens of armed enforcers and capos were moving between armored SUVs, preparing for the evening shifts.
Aleandro watched her, unsure whether to call for Rosa or simply let the child be.
Then, Mia gasped.
She dropped the stuffed rabbit onto the floor. Her tiny hand slapped against the windowpane, her index finger pointing rigidly at a figure crossing the wet cobblestones below.
"That uncle took my mommy," Mia whispered.
Aleandro’s blood ran completely cold. The air in the study seemed to freeze, suspending them in a terrifying vacuum. He stood up slowly, moving to the window to follow the trajectory of her small, trembling finger.
Walking across the courtyard, laughing and smoking a cigar with two other men, was Silvio.
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Silvio was not a low-level guard. He was Aleandro’s cousin. A trusted capo who managed the eastern extortion rackets. A man who ate at his table, drank his wine, and swore blood loyalty to the Moretti family.
Aleandro went completely still. The silence in the room wasn't the absence of sound; it was the gathering of a catastrophic storm. In that single, frozen instant, he understood that Elena had not abandoned her child. She had been taken. And the traitor was living under his own roof.
