Chapter 5 - The Confrontation at the St. RegisAt 5:30 PM, the luxurious top-floor master suite at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan was filled with warm amber light, soft jazz music, and the rich aroma of expensive cigars.
Marco Bandi—thirty-two years old, wearing a five-thousand-dollar bespoke suit—sat in a leather armchair, swirling twenty-year-old scotch in a crystal glass.
Sitting across from him was Don Vincent Valenti—the ruthless sixty-year-old head of the Valenti Syndicate.
"It's over, Don Valenti," Marco smirked, his eyes gleaming with greedy, ambitious triumph. "My team at Café Luna confirmed the hit team breached five minutes ago. Nicolo is dead. By tomorrow morning, the entire Bandi waterfront territory will be under our joint control."
Vincent Valenti raised his glass, offering a dark, cruel smile. "To the new King of Brooklyn, Marco."
BOOM!
The heavy double mahogany doors of the master suite didn't just open—they were blown off their hinges by a hydraulic breaching charge, sending splinters and white dust showering over the plush velvet furniture.
Marco jumped out of his leather chair, dropping his scotch glass onto the Persian rug, where it shattered into a hundred sparkling shards.
"WHAT THE HELL—?!" Marco screamed, reaching for his sidearm holster.
Stepping through the smoke, wearing her sleek dark tactical gear, her custom suppressed pistol held ready at low-ready, was Sophia Vance.
And walking directly beside her right shoulder, wearing his coat torn, his face stained with gunpowder and blood, his eyes burning with an apocalyptic, sovereign fury, was his brother—Nicolo Bandi.
Marco’s scotch glass slipped from his trembling hand. His face turned an ugly, paper-white shade of green as his knees buckled beneath him.
"Ni... Nicolo...?!" Marco stammered, his voice cracking into high, pathetic squeaks. "How... how are you alive?!"
Nicolo walked slowly across the plush rug. He didn't rush. He stopped two feet from his younger brother, towering over him like a mountain of cold granite.
"You sent eight mercenaries to kill me in my own café, Marco?" Nicolo spoke softly. His baritone was quiet, but it carried an unyielding, velvet power that filled every corner of the room. "You tried to erase your own blood for docks and money?"
THWACK!
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Nicolo’s broad right hand shot forward, delivering a single, thunderous backhand blow across Marco’s face that sent him crashing flat onto his back against the marble hearth.
"ARGH!" Marco groaned in agony, clutching his bloody lip as he thrashed on the carpet floorboards.
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