Page 175 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
When he opens his mouth, he names the lieutenants.
The smuggling routes.
The accounts buried under state-funded humanitarian branches.
His voice never lifts.
He gives it away like someone handing over receipts for debts already cleared.
Dante listens to the recordings in his office, one hand on the edge of the desk, the other curled beneath the sleeve of his shirt.
When the audio ends, he gives one command. "Erase him."
The next few days bleed into each other, marked by the constant, low thrum of the house, a vibration I feel in my bones.
I spend my time in the solarium with the girls, forcing smiles, building kingdoms of syrup, counting crooked crackers on linen napkins.
Their laughter is a shield, a fragile membrane against the violence I know is unfolding.
I monitor the news feeds, not for explicit reports, but for the subtle tremors.
Odd resignations.
Unexplained bankruptcies.
Ships lost at sea.
It's the ghost of a shadow war playing out in plain sight.
Il Sangue Nero unravels first.
The Umbra system's collapse wasn't just a shutdown; it was a detonation. Without its hidden architecture, their network of influence is suddenly exposed, the leverage gone.
I imagine the panic, the scrambling in those hidden nodes my father built. Dante’s teams move with brutal efficiency.
They're leveraging the very knowledge we gleaned from the Umbra system before I wiped it.
Financial funnels freeze, politicians disappear, intercepted communications are turned against them.
I hear whispers from the periphery, from staff who talk too much, from overheard phone calls in the kitchen.
Anonymous tips to authorities.
Selective leaks to rival syndicates.
It's not a direct, bloody purge on the streets, but a dismantling from the inside out, a surgical operation.
Their strategic, targeted hits become their undoing.
Their unclaimed actions are suddenly claimed by the Salvatore name, a thunderous silence following each strike.
One by one, their operations go dark.
News reports speak of sudden, widespread organized crime arrests in Brussels, in Istanbul, in Kiev.
Not our name, of course.
Just a broad, public sweep that decapitates Il Sangue Nero's international reach.
