"When the ruthless Mafia boss unboxed his birthday gifts, he never expected to find his own starving, barefoot grandson freezing in the snow—and the bloody revenge that followed." / Chapter 35 / 60

Chapter 35 - The bloodline network

Twenty-four hours after the siege at the Bellacorte estate, a nondescript Gulfstream G550 touched down on a private tarmac outside Lisbon, Portugal. The rain swept across the tarmac in gray sheets, beating against the armored black Mercedes waiting beside the hangar.

Richard Bellacorte stepped off the mobile staircase, wearing a dark trench coat that concealed twin concealed shoulder holsters. Beside him, Viktor walked with a slight limp, his wounded leg tightly wrapped and pumped with field-grade coagulants and pain blockers. Richard’s face was drawn, his skin like weathered granite, but his eyes carried the lethal stillness of an executioner who had already accepted his own mortality.

Before leaving New York, Richard had confirmed that Sarah and Noah had reached a secure safehouse in rural Maine, guarded by three former Navy SEALs who had owed Richard their lives since the Balkan conflicts. Noah was safe for now, the synthetic drug slowly leaving his system under the watchful care of Dr. Thorne, who had traveled with them.

Now, Richard was on the offensive.

The car door opened, and a silver-haired man in an exquisite bespoke suit stepped out, holding an umbrella. Don Matteo Corvo, the head of the oldest Iberian syndicate and the Bellacorte family’s blood-sworn brother for over forty years.

"Richard," Matteo greeted him, his European cadence somber as they embraced briefly. "When Viktor called, I thought he was speaking from beyond the grave. The Five Families held a memorial mass for you in Brooklyn yesterday. Julian leaked documents to the press showing you died in an accidental fire at your estate."

"Julian is very good at writing fiction," Richard said as they climbed into the rear of the Mercedes. "The media believes what the money pays them to believe."

The Mercedes pulled away, escorted by two chase cars through the winding, rain-slicked streets toward an isolated 17th-century fortress overlooking the Atlantic cliffs.

"How deep does this run, Matteo?" Richard asked without preamble. "How did my son get his hands on Vatican financial corridors and private military contracts?"

Matteo poured two fingers of vintage scotch into crystal glasses, his hand remarkably steady. "Julian didn't die six years ago, Richard. He orchestrated that yacht explosion with Cardinal Pietro Vance, the former treasurer of the Holy See’s offshore foundations. Julian traded your domestic shipping routes and union control in New York to the European cartels in exchange for their backing. He has been laundering billions through shell corporations in Panama, Singapore, and Argentina."

Richard took a slow sip of the whiskey, the liquid burning down his throat. "And the forty billion Arthur thought he was hoarding?"

"Arthur was a puppet," Matteo revealed, leaning closer. "Julian fed Arthur the codes to siphon that money from your vault, knowing Arthur was too greedy to hide his tracks. Julian wanted Arthur to play the villain so you would eliminate him. With Arthur dead and you presumed deceased, Julian inherits the entire syndicate legally under international trust laws. The banking board in Geneva is meeting in forty-eight hours to ratify Julian's claim to the entire Bellacorte estate."

"Forty-eight hours," Richard muttered, staring out at the rain pounding against the tinted glass. "Where is he hiding?"

"He isn't in Buenos Aires," Matteo said with a heavy sigh. "That video feed was bounced through twelve proxy servers in South America, but my intelligence network traced the physical fiber connection to a private island off the coast of Montenegro. The fortress of San Giovanni. A medieval redoubt purchased by Julian’s shell firm three years ago. It’s an impenetrable fortress, Richard. Anti-aircraft batteries, naval radar, fifty heavily armed guards."

"No fortress is impenetrable," Richard replied, his voice dropping into that chilling, quiet register. "It has one catastrophic structural flaw."

Matteo raised an eyebrow. "And what is that?"

"Julian lives inside it," Richard said, setting his empty glass down on the console. "And Julian still thinks like my son. He thinks in terms of power, leverage, and absolute control. He believes he has broken me because he took my name, my money, and my pride."