Chapter 14 - Back to Bellandi Hall
Bellandi Hall was evacuated before Grant arrived.
Massimo hated the emptiness.
Three nights earlier it had been full of music and people pretending the Bellandi family was untouchable.
Now broken display shelves still marked the place where Grant had fallen.
Police positioned teams out of sight.
Grant entered through the loading dock carrying a backpack and a metal fuel can.
He had no gun visible.
That did not make anyone relax.
Massimo stood alone in the center of the hall wearing a wire.
“You came,” Grant said.
“You asked for Isabella.”
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
Grant laughed. “With you?”
Massimo let the insult pass.
“What’s in the backpack?”
“Insurance.”
“Against what?”
“You.”
Grant pulled out a hard drive.
“Carlo kept records. Old payments. Old jobs. Names. Enough to turn your legitimate empire into evidence.”
Massimo looked at it.
Twenty years earlier, he might have killed for less.
Now he felt tired.
“Give it to the police.”
Grant blinked.
“What?”
“Give them everything.”
“You’ll go to prison.”
“If I committed something they can prove, then I answer for it.”
Grant stared at him as if Massimo had stopped speaking English.
“No. You’re supposed to threaten me.”
“I already threatened my family with my reputation for too many years.”
Grant’s face twisted.
“You think this makes you noble?”
“No.”
Massimo stepped closer.
“It makes me late.”
Grant lifted the fuel can.
Police tensed behind the walls.
Massimo kept talking.
“Isabella doesn’t need me to punish you. She needs me to stop becoming useful to you.”
Grant’s hand shook.
“All I wanted was a place in this family.”
“You wanted control.”
“You gave Carlo everything.”
“I trusted him.”
“And you never trusted me.”
“I did. That was my mistake.”
Grant threw the can.
It hit the marble and spilled.
His other hand went into the backpack.
Massimo did not move.
Grant pulled out a lighter.
Then Isabella’s voice came through the hall speakers.
“Grant.”
He froze.
She was in the police command room, not the building.
“You don’t get to make me watch another thing burn,” she said.
May you like
Grant looked up at the speakers.
And for the first time, he looked afraid of her.
