Chapter 9 - The Interrogation Of The Beast
The interrogation room in the basement of 26 Federal Plaza was cold, windowless, and illuminated by humming fluorescent tubes.
Dante Caruso sat cuffed to an iron ring anchored into the concrete floor.
His designer suit was torn at the shoulder, covered in tear-gas residue, and his eyes remained red and swollen.
Yet his arrogant posture had returned, his jaw set in defiance as he glared across the metal table.
Sitting across from him was Special Agent Marcus Hayes, a veteran federal prosecutor-turned-agent who had spent twelve years attempting to breach the Caruso organization.
Beside Hayes sat Elena Vance, holding a thick leather folder containing forty-eight pages of newly unsealed evidence.
Dante didn't look at the federal agent.
His burning gaze remained fixed entirely on his wife.
“You set me up,” Dante hissed, his voice hoarse from the gas.
“You coordinated a federal sting using your own aunt’s apartment as bait.”
Elena flipped open the folder, not blinking.
“You walked into an armed assault with five known felons carrying medical sedatives, Dante.
You broke down the door of a private citizen.
You did that completely on your own because you couldn't stand the thought of a woman refusing to obey you.”
Agent Hayes leaned forward, tapping a finger on the metallic tabletop.
“Mr. Caruso, your attorney Arthur Sterling is currently in custody three floors above us.”
Dante let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter.
“Arthur won't say a word.
He knows the penalty for treason in my family.”
“Arthur is currently singing like a canary, Dante,” Elena interrupted, her voice steady and devastatingly calm.
“Because twenty minutes ago, Victoria delivered the original financial ledgers of the Vance Maritime accounts to the United States District Court.
Arthur realized that if he doesn't testify against you, he will spend the next forty years in ADX Florence for RICO conspiracy and capital securities fraud.”
Dante’s confident sneer began to crack around the edges.
“Those ledgers are protected by attorney-client privilege!”
“Not when the ledgers document the premeditated murder of Julian Vance,” Elena stated, sliding an eight-by-ten glossy photograph across the table.
The photograph showed the interior of an abandoned warehouse on Pier 42.
Chalk outlines still marked the concrete floor where my father’s body had been recovered nine years ago.
Beside it lay a newly analyzed forensic ballistics report signed by the chief coroner of New York.
“The bullet recovered from my father’s skull nine years ago was classified as a standard nine-millimeter hollow point,” Elena explained, her voice carrying an icy edge that made the hair on Dante’s arms stand up.
“The original police report claimed the firearm was never recovered.
Except it was recovered, Dante.”
Elena produced another photograph—a custom gold-inlaid Beretta 92FS bearing the Caruso family crest.
The exact gun Dante had kept locked inside his penthouse safe until I removed it two nights ago.
“The ballistics match the rifling on your father’s ceremonial sidearm, Dante,” Elena said, her eyes boring into his soul.
“The firearm has your father’s fingerprints on the grip and your nineteen-year-old thumbprint on the magazine casing.
You were in that warehouse when Julian Vance was executed.
You handed your father the gun.”
Dante’s chest heaved.
The color vanished from his skin entirely, leaving him looking like an emaciated corpse beneath the fluorescent light.
“Elena...
listen to me,” he whispered, leaning across the table as far as his handcuffs would allow, his voice cracking with genuine desperation.
“I was a boy.
My father forced me to come to that meeting.
He told me that if I didn't prove my loyalty to the family, he would put me in the ground next to your father!
I had no choice!”
Elena leaned forward until her face was only inches from his.
“You had a choice eight years ago when you looked into my grieving eyes and told me you loved me, Dante.
You had a choice when you slipped that wedding ring onto my finger, knowing you had watched my father bleed out on a dirty warehouse floor.
You chose to lie to me every single morning for nearly three thousand days.”
“I loved you, Elena!” Dante shouted, tears of panic finally breaking through his hard exterior.
“I married you to protect you!
If I hadn't taken you into my house, my father’s captains would have eliminated you to tie up loose ends!
Everything I did, every single dollar I stole, I did so that you would never have to suffer!”
Elena closed the folder with a sharp, definitive slap that sounded like a gunshot in the sterile room.
“My father suffered because of your greed, Dante.
And for eight years, you made me your accomplice in his murder by keeping me quiet and obedient.”
She stood up from the table, smoothing down the lapels of her black coat.
“Elena, don't leave me here!” Dante pleaded, rattling the steel handcuffs violently against the iron floor ring.
“If they put me in federal holding, Moretti’s men on the inside will butcher me!
You can't let them do this!
We’re husband and wife!”
Elena paused at the heavy steel door, looking back over her shoulder one final time.
“We were husband and wife until Friday night at 10:43, Dante.
Now, you’re just another inmate facing three life sentences without the possibility of parole.”
May you like
The heavy steel door slid open.
Elena walked through into the hallway, leaving Dante’s screaming pleas echoing fruitlessly against the cold concrete walls.
