Chapter 9 - Interrogation in the Depths
The basement beneath the Moretti estate was not a wine cellar. It was an underground fortress built of reinforced concrete and soundproofed steel, three levels below ground, smelling of damp earth, copper, and cold iron.
Mrs. Gable was strapped tightly to a heavy wooden chair bolted to the concrete floor. Her face was smeared with running mascara, her expensive silk blouse torn, and her hands were bound behind her with thick zip ties. Standing around her were three of Lorenzo’s most trusted enforcers, their faces expressionless, their jackets unbuttoned over shoulder holsters.
The heavy steel door creaked open. Lorenzo stepped into the stark, fluorescent light of the interrogation chamber. He had removed his jacket, rolling the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows. He wore black leather gloves, their tight fit accentuating the lethal precision of his hands.
"Lorenzo! Please!" Gable sobbed the moment she saw him. "I made a mistake! I was desperate! The money... they offered me half a million dollars! My son is in debt to bookies in Brooklyn, they were going to kill him!"
Lorenzo pulled up a metal chair, turned it around, and sat down three feet in front of her. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the backrest, his expression completely blank.
"I don't care about your son, Abigail," Lorenzo said, his voice flat, devoid of anger, which made it ten times more terrifying. "You poisoned my father for four months with slow-acting neurotoxins. You starved him. And today, you tried to throw an innocent pregnant woman into a cage to cover your tracks."
"I was told to get rid of her!" Gable blurted out, her teeth chattering. "The girl was ruining everything! She was feeding him real food, breaking the dosage schedule! Every time she gave him tea, it diluted the drops I put in his medicine! She was waking him up!"
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed slightly. So Nora had unknowingly saved Giovanni’s life not once, but repeatedly, simply by being attentive and caring.
"Who gave you the poison, Abigail?" Lorenzo asked softly. "Give me the name."
"I... I can't," she whimpered, tears streaming down her chin. "If I tell you, they’ll slaughter my family. They know everything."
Lorenzo didn't raise his voice. He simply raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
One of the enforcers stepped forward, placed a steel briefcase on the metal table, and clicked open the latches. Inside sat a tablet connected to live surveillance footage, along with three manila folders.
"Your son, Peter Gable," Lorenzo said casually, tapping the tablet screen. "Currently hiding in an apartment above an auto shop in Bay Ridge. My men are standing outside his door right now. If I don't send a confirmation text in two minutes, Peter will take a very long swim in the Hudson River with thirty pounds of cement tied to his ankles."
Gable’s eyes widened in sheer horror. "No! God, no! Please, Lorenzo, don't hurt Peter! I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything!"
"One minute and forty seconds, Abigail."
"It was Mateo Falcone!" she screamed, her voice cracking against the concrete walls. "Mateo! He contacted me six months ago! He said the Don was getting too old, and the Moretti syndicate would fall apart if Giovanni died of 'natural causes.' He paid me to administer the drops slowly, to make it look like dementia! And when Nora showed up, Mateo told me to frame her for theft so the police would take her away before she interfered any further!"
Lorenzo’s expression didn't change, but behind his gray eyes, a roaring fire ignited. Mateo Falcone was the head of the Brooklyn Falcone family—a syndicate that had pledged a blood truce with the Morettis five years ago. Mateo had smiled at Lorenzo across dinner tables, shook his hand at family weddings, and kissed Giovanni’s ring while paying off housekeepers to poison him in his own bed.
"Is that all?" Lorenzo asked coldly.
"No! There's more!" Gable cried out, desperate to save her son. "Mateo said... he said Nora wasn't just a random hire! He wanted her in the house!"
Lorenzo froze. His posture went completely rigid. "What did you say?"
"Nora applied through an agency Mateo’s shell company controls," Gable stammered, trembling from head to toe. "Mateo knew her background! He knew her ex-boyfriend was a degenerate gambler who owed hundreds of thousands to the Falcone family! Mateo was using her as a pawn—someone broke, helpless, and easily blamed for anything that went wrong!"
Lorenzo stood up slowly. The air in the cellar felt suddenly suffocating.
The innocence Nora carried wasn't an act. She had been thrown into a den of wolves, completely blind, manipulated by beasts who saw her as nothing more than a disposable shield. And yet, amidst all that darkness, she had chosen to protect an old man who had nothing to give her.
"Keep her alive," Lorenzo ordered his men, turning his back on Gable. "Lock her in the isolation cell. Feed her bread and water. Exactly what she gave my father."
"Lorenzo! What about Peter?!" Gable screamed behind him.
"Peter lives," Lorenzo said coldly without stopping. "For now."
As Lorenzo climbed the stairs back into the warm light of the upper estate, his blood was boiling. He had two tasks ahead of him. The first was to destroy the Falcone family down to the last brick.
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The second was to return to Nora's bedroom—and ensure that the sweet, broken girl who had preserved his father’s life would never face the darkness of this world alone again.
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