Page 58 of The Enforcer's Possession
They’d be tracing the video’s origin, of course.Analyzing the metadata, trying to identify the warehouse location from what little background was visible.Giuseppe had resources and people who specialized in exactly this kind of investigation.But I’d been thorough.The video had been routed through seven different servers across four countries before reaching his phone.The warehouse’s location was deliberately obscured, and the property records led to shell corporations nested inside shell corporations.
They’d figure it out eventually.But eventually wasn’t immediately, and time was the weapon I was wielding.
My phone buzzed.A text from one of my sources inside the Lombardi security apparatus:Total lockdown.All family members restricted to compound.DL called, on his way now.G threatening to burn entire city down if anything happens to the kid.
I smiled and took a sip of scotch.Giuseppe’s rage was predictable.Dante’s arrival was expected.The interesting part would be watching whether their alliance held under this pressure or fractured along the fault lines that had always been there.
The De Luca compound feed showed similar activity.Their security office was lit up like Christmas, multiple screens showing what I assumed were their own intelligence-gathering operations.Men in tactical gear assembled in organized groups -- Dante’s enforcers preparing for war.Their discipline was impressive even through the distant camera angle.
A car pulled up to the compound’s main entrance.I recognized it immediately -- Dante’s armored Escalade.He emerged from the driver’s side, still in what looked like the same clothes he’d had on all day judging by his slightly rumpled appearance.Probably hadn’t even gone home first, had diverted directly to his compound to coordinate the response.
Francesca appeared from the building to meet him.Even in the low-quality feed, I could see the tension in her posture.She handed him something -- a tablet, probably containing their initial analysis.Dante studied it for perhaps thirty seconds before throwing it against the concrete with force that probably shattered the screen.
Good.Let him rage.Let him feel the powerlessness of having something precious threatened.Let him understand what I’d felt watching him claim Caterina at that dinner.
Another buzz.Different source, embedded deeper in the Lombardi family structure:Meeting started.Multiple theories on how this happened.A Rossi suggesting M might still have people loyal inside compound.
That last part was interesting.I switched the laptop to the feed showing Giuseppe’s study entrance and watched as more men arrived.Family members, senior associates, probably everyone whose opinion Giuseppe valued.A convoy of expensive suits and barely controlled violence, all gathering to discuss how to respond to the crisis I’d engineered.
The beauty of the situation was how it forced divisions.Some would advocate paying any price to get Luca back safely.Others would argue that negotiating with kidnappers set a precedent that would make the family look weak.Giuseppe would be caught between his role as father and his role as don, unable to satisfy both completely.
And Dante.Dante would be advocating for aggressive action.For finding me, for extracting Luca by force, for showing no weakness.But he couldn’t track what he couldn’t find, and his vaunted reputation meant nothing when his new brother-in-law was held hostage in an unknown location.
My phone lit up again.This time it was a call.I checked the number -- one of Giuseppe’s known associates, probably calling to fish for information or issue threats on his behalf.I rejected it and switched my phone to do not disturb.Let them stew in their uncertainty for a while longer.
The study feed showed Giuseppe collapsed into his desk chair, his head in his hands.Sofia stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder.Even through the grainy footage, I could see the toll this was taking.Their son.Their heir.Their baby boy who’d been protected his whole life suddenly vulnerable and terrified.
I felt nothing watching their anguish.Or rather, I felt satisfaction.They’d dismissed me.Treated me like I was irrelevant.Like my interest in Caterina was something they could ignore while they pursued more advantageous arrangements.
Now they understood differently.
More cars at the De Luca compound.I recognized several of them as belonging to Dante’s most trusted people.He was mobilizing everything -- calling in favors, activating networks, preparing for what would probably be the most intensive manhunt of his career.
Let him hunt.By the time he found the warehouse, the situation would already be resolved one way or another.
I pulled up the photo of Caterina that I kept on my phone -- not one of the surveillance shots my people had taken, but a professional photograph from some charity gala.She wore red in this one, the color that had first caught my attention at Rossi’s party three years ago.Her smile was genuine, her eyes bright with something that looked like happiness.
She wouldn’t be happy now.Probably terrified.Definitely furious.Maybe already making plans to comply with my demands just to save her brother.Or maybe clinging to Dante’s protection, believing he could somehow fix this before the deadline expired.
Either way, she’d be thinking about me.About the choice I’d forced on her.About how her rejection had led directly to this moment.
The laptop feed from the Lombardi estate showed new activity.A woman arriving -- based on the body language of the men who surrounded her, someone important.Caterina.She’d come to her father’s estate rather than staying at Dante’s penthouse.Interesting choice.
I watched her disappear into the building, probably heading straight for Giuseppe’s study.Within minutes, the study feed showed her bursting through the door, Dante close behind.She moved to Giuseppe, embracing him in a way that looked desperate.Sofia joined them, and for a moment, the whole family was clustered together in a tableau of shared anguish.
Then Caterina pulled away and appeared to be speaking rapidly, her hands moving in animated gestures.Demanding information, probably.Asking questions no one had good answers for.The men in the room watched her with expressions that ranged from sympathy to calculation -- each one probably wondering if Giuseppe would trade his daughter’s marriage to save his son.
Dante stood apart, his posture rigid.Even through the distant camera, I could read the violence in how he held himself.He wanted to act, to move, to break things until the problem was solved.But there was nothing to break, no enemy to confront.Just a waiting game he couldn’t control.
My phone showed 1:47 a.m.Twenty-two hours and thirteen minutes left until my deadline.Twenty-two hours for both families to tear themselves apart arguing about the correct response.Twenty-two hours for Caterina to weigh her love for her brother against her obligations to the husband who couldn’t possibly want her as much as I did.
I raised my scotch glass toward the laptop screen, toward the feeds showing two families in crisis.
“To consequences,” I said to the empty room.“To teaching people that dismissing Marco Vitale comes with a price they can’t afford to pay.”
I opened the photo of Caterina again, studied her face with the obsessive attention I’d given it for years.
“Your marriage has destabilized everything,” I told her image, my voice steady and cold in the silence of my penthouse.“The alliance Giuseppe was so proud of.The protection Dante promised you.The safety your family took for granted.All of it crumbling because you made the wrong choice.”
