Chapter 9 - The Confession
“It was Julian!” Marcus shrieked hysterically, crying tears of pure panic with a gun pressed to his head. “Julian paid me! He promised me twenty million from the shipping trust if I got rid of the heir!”
“Liar!” Alessio growled, pressing the barrel harder into his skin. “You approached Julian! You used Aunt Beatrice’s charm bracelet to frame her last night!”
“Yes! Yes, okay!” Marcus sobbed, completely breaking down under the terrifying aura of the Romano boss. “I took the bead from Beatrice’s jewelry box on Tuesday! I cut it off with my wire cutters! That’s how I cut my finger!”
“And Baltimore?” I asked, holding up my phone, which was recording every single word in high-definition audio. “Did you poison Leo in Baltimore?”
“Isabella found out I was embezzling from her trust!” Marcus confessed, his voice cracking. “She threatened to tell Alessio! I poisoned the baby’s milk in Baltimore to distract her, to make her look like an unfit mother so the court would strip her guardianship! But she fled to Switzerland with the files!”
“So you tampered with her brake lines in the Alps,” Alessio said, his voice dropping into a horrifyingly calm whisper.
“I had no choice!” Marcus wept, trembling uncontrollably on the floor. “She was going to destroy me! Please, Alessio... don't kill me! Please!”
Alessio looked down at the pathetic, groveling man who had destroyed his family. His finger tightened on the trigger of his silenced pistol. For two terrifying seconds, I thought Alessio was going to execute him right there on the nursery rug.
“Alessio,” I called out softly, stepping beside him. I gently placed my hand over his gun hand, lowering it slowly. “Leo needs his father in his life, not in a prison cell. Let the law finish him.”
Alessio looked at my hand on his, then looked into my eyes. The blinding rage in his dark eyes slowly receded, replaced by a deep, profound respect and gratitude.
He lowered the gun.
“Dominic!” Alessio called out.
The nursery door burst open, and Dominic stepped inside accompanied by Detective Karen Vance and two federal agents who had been waiting in the hallway, listening to the entire live audio feed.
“Marcus Vance,” Detective Vance announced, pulling steel handcuffs from her belt and snapping them violently around Marcus’s wrists. “You are under arrest for attempted murder, grand larceny, and the premeditated homicide of Isabella Romano.”
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As the feds dragged a screaming, sobbing Marcus out of the nursery, Dominic turned to Alessio. “Julian Romano has been detained at the gate, Boss. Federal agents are seizing his accounts as we speak.”
The house was finally clear. The shadows that had haunted the Romano family for six long months were officially banished into the light.
